Fun with OLD ThinkPads

[whizkid]

http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_De ... nkPad_750P

Quick Stats: 33MHz 486, 36MB RAM, 5.1GB disk.

I re-re-re-reinstalled Debian last night. It seemed to go pretty well, mostly. Getting updates is a bit tricky.

Next is to try to upgrade to Sarge.

Then I may try to go straight for a minimal Ubuntu, or Etch then Ubuntu.

Then to add XFCE4... and in all my spare time I'll have to port the WD90C24 driver to X.org.

What old machines are you putting Linux on?

[short101]

Is that with a 2.6 kernel? that amount of ram would be pushing it.

[whizkid]

I'm going to try for the minimal Ubuntu install. It's been said to work with 32MB RAM including XFCE4. We'll see. I'd consider building a custom kernel too, leaving out PCI, USB and a lot of other things. Still, I would hope that those things would swap out and never come back if the memory was needed.

[ThePowerTool]

Hi! First post for me!

I used to run my firewall on an old IBM ThinkPad 760 through Red Hat 7ish.

Now I run my firewall on an IBM ThinkPad 770 with FC4.

I tried to install FC on the 760 using several different versions. I didn't want to fight the memory issue which is why I upgraded to the 770.

I also run Red Hat 8 on a T30. I haven't upgraded because it's a server with a lot of different services running and I'm dreading having to re-install or risk the upgrade.

[whizkid]

I'd say the risk of running a server on a T30 is the hard drive. They are nowhere near as robust as drives in a server.

But I do know what you mean about migrating. I have a Netfinity 5000 (600MHz PIII) running FC6. I'm tired of updating Fedora every year, and scared it will just stop working (although I could restore from a backup in an hour or so). It runs my family's email, so it can't go down for a few days while I install CentOS. So I bought a new server to install that on, and I can take my time and switch over once that's ready to go live.

BTW, I almost have a plan for a way to install Ubuntu directly onto my 750P without having another OS installed first. It does involve a cheat of using a PCCard flash drive, though.

[ThePowerTool]

I can clearly see you understand and feel my pain

Yes, the HD is a risk. I have spares and just need to make some time to backup so I could restore to a spare. It doesn't run anything as important as e-mail so the backup I have is kinda old. I think it's definitely time I prepare a back-up and a plan for a scratch install if I have problems. My biggest to-do is figuring out the T30 vid drivers for the Radeon 7500 so I can support my new ext. monitor at 1280x768. The card should support it but it's giving me difficulty. I've posted here in the ThinkPad Linux section and have my fingers crossed. It runs so I'd hate to have to update Linux on it. I'd probably do a scratch install if it came to that.

Using a PCCard flash drive isn't a cheat. It's innovative

Good Luck with that!

OK, as an afterthought (composed this msg in 2 parts and posted the entire thing this evening) I'll add just what it does do.

It's a
. Quake I server
. Quake 2 server
. Quake 3 server
. Half Life server
. UT (GOTY) server
. VOIP server (strictly friends)
. SETI / BOINC (spare CPU moments)
. ShowEQ server (now defunct and retired)
. LimeWire Host and Client
. FTP host (mostly friends or occasional emergency services)