Old ThinkPad Back from the Dead

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whizkid · #1 Post by **whizkid** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 8:50 am

If you have an old ThinkPad just sitting around, you might consider putting Linux on it. A current, modern, up to date Linux like Ubuntu. Impossible? Nope. I just finished putting Ubuntu 6.06 LTS on my 750P. Curious readers can find my post here:
http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.ph ... 266#369266

Or go straight to the ThinkWiki page here:
http://thinkwiki.org/wiki/Installing_Ub ... nkPad_750P

It should work on any ThinkPad with a 486 with an FPU or certainly any Pentium machine. 486SX owners: Sorry.

#2 Post by **carbon_unit** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 10:16 am

While you can run Linux on a vintage machine like that. You have to remember that Linux is just the command line. If you want to click on things you will need a GUI and the requirements for running X11 are a bit higher than command line Linux. I don't think you will get KDE or Gnome running on a 486. If you want something to be usable for web surfing I wouldn't go lower than a 166mhz with a JWM desktop like http://puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=1. You will be amazed at what Puppy Linux can do for an old Thinkpad.

whizkid · #3 Post by **whizkid** » Mon Dec 24, 2007 12:03 pm

Too true. It should be possible to get X running on this machine, but Gnome or KDE is another matter entirely. Maybe XFCE would work... barely.

But the main roadblock to X on this box is that there is no current video driver. X86 v3.3.6 was the last to support it, and it's never been ported to X86 4.0 or to X.org. It's not a project I have time for either. Oh! And it's so old that it's not VESA compatible either. IBM made a VESA TSR so that Win95 would give a full 640x480x8 bit color. Not so easy with Linux.

I do have a 560E with just that 166MMX CPU in it that I may give Puppy a try on, though. Thanks.

Timoti · #4 Post by **Timoti** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:22 pm

Linux has math emulation, so it can run on a 486SX, just even slower than on a DX.

I use my 365X as a VNC console to my desktop box in another room. Starts fairly fast, real quiet, 800x600x8bit with Ubuntu 6.06, vesa X driver, blackbox window manager.
Framebuffer with directvnc (no X) would be better, but this particular Trident chip is not really supported by the kernel...

In case of emergency it can run a firefox, but it's a pain, so i use links2 instead.

whizkid · #5 Post by **whizkid** » Thu Dec 27, 2007 2:34 pm

Timoti, you should at least consider writing up your experiences on installing Linux on your 365X on ThinkWiki. It may help someone out. There's precious little there for that machine, and it's very old information.

And while Linux may run on a 486SX, the kernels made by Ubuntu may not. The reason I left Fedora for my 750P was that its kernels won't run on a 486 at all, and while I can build a kernel, I don't have a need for it, especially when something else works.

Jawadali · #6 Post by **Jawadali** » Mon Jan 07, 2008 6:39 pm

Those interested in running a linux distro with a more traditional GUI/desktop should take a look at DeLi Linux:

http://www.delilinux.org/

The developer states that it should run fine on a 486 with 16MB of RAM.

I was attempting to install it on an old 233mhz desktop, but I'm pretty new to Linux, and was having trouble getting the actual desktop to load (I think it had to do with the X-server or window manager).

I did get puppy linux working, albeit briefly.

If you want to stick with Ubuntu, you could give fluxbuntu a try (I never gave it a shot since it wasn't fully released yet):

http://fluxbuntu.org/explain.html

whizkid · #7 Post by **whizkid** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 10:13 am

Those are both very interesting projects, but my interest is more in the mainstream distributions for several reasons but mostly because of the large community of knowledgeable users. As long as Ubuntu claims to run on a 486 with 32MB RAM, my 750P will be fine with that.

I also got my 560E working recently, and it can boot from a PCMCIA card reader, and I've begun an Ubuntu install a few times, but have yet to get X working on that. 80MB RAM should be enough for Xubuntu. In either case, one can run fluxbox on Ubuntu also, and take advantage of their frequent updates.

Jawadali · #8 Post by **Jawadali** » Tue Jan 08, 2008 7:58 pm

I could be wrong, but I remember reading that the minimum specs for Xubuntu was 64MB RAM for an installed version.

I tried installing it with 64MB RAM on a 233mhz P1, but it took forever and never quite worked out. It did work with 128MB of RAM, but it was very slow (I'd say it was slower than my 365x with Windows 98 SE).

I was running it with the XFCE desktop and all.

I think fluxbuntu uses the Ubuntu core, so it should support most features of Ubuntu. I think I read that it may install with 32MB of RAM on their forums somewhere.

al7kz · #9 Post by **al7kz** » Thu Jan 10, 2008 6:42 pm

Old ThinkPad Back from the Dead

Old ThinkPad Back from the Dead

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