13 year old Craptop

[Aloone_Jonez]

I have an old 486 33MHz laptop with 4MB of RAM, it has a craptacular 256kB VGA card with a 640x480 screen.

What operating system do you recommend I install on it?

It currently struggles to run Windows 95 and I'm sick and tired of it so I was thinking about installing MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 but then I thought I might try out a superiour non-MS alternative.

[piratePenguin]

DSL or Slackware (maybe an older version. Not sure.), or if you're up for an adventure, LFS. And I can't imagine doing much on such a machine, until I setup an X server and get it connected to my proper machine (I wanna get something like that setup someday, just for a laugh and the convenience of having a portable computer I can use around the house.).

[Lead Head]

I have an old 486 33MHz laptop with 4MB of RAM, it has a craptacular 256kB VGA card with a 640x480 screen.

What operating system do you recommend I install on it?

It currently struggles to run Windows 95 and I'm sick and tired of it so I was thinking about installing MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 but then I thought I might try out a superiour non-MS alternative.

A computer can actually strugle with 95?

[noob]

Yeah, mine did. Wouldnt boot it at all. Athlon 64 3400 and 95 couldnt start up .

[WMD]

I have an old 486 33MHz laptop with 4MB of RAM, it has a craptacular 256kB VGA card with a 640x480 screen.

What operating system do you recommend I install on it?

It currently struggles to run Windows 95 and I'm sick and tired of it so I was thinking about installing MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 3.1 but then I thought I might try out a superiour non-MS alternative.

Well Jonesy, I always hear you talking about  FreeDOS.  There you have it!

[Aloone_Jonez]

That could be the answer, I don't know if trying to get Linux to work on such an old machine is really worth the trouble. I'm considering installing an MS-DOS alternative like FreeDOS, DR-DOS or even FreeDOS32 which even though still in the early stages of development can run some djgpp and Windows console programs.

I'm stuck between these choices which one would you recommend?

By the way this machine doesn't even have a CD-ROM.

[mobrien_12]

I've had a LOT of boxes in my days.  

Windows 95 will be a boatanchor on a 33 MHz system with 8MB of ram, much less 4 MB.

Even Windows 3.1 will struggle with that RAM if you try to  do anything with it (like run Wordperfect or Word).  

What will run very fast:  DR-DOS.  If you want a fast GUI layer, put OpenGEM/FreeGEM on top of it.  That's what the OpenGEM and FreeGEM projects are there for.

A linux would be ok, but I think you would need to go with DSL.  I don't think you could run really run X-windows with that  little RAM, although it would make a very nice command line & SVGA box.

Actually, you seriously might want to consider OS/2, either version 2 or warp 3.    With the blue spine editions you could run Windows 3.1 programs.  You are still limited by that RAM, but OS/2 is really good with low RAM systems.

[WMD]

Even Windows 3.1 will struggle with that RAM if you try to  do anything with it (like run Wordperfect or Word).

I have a 25MHz 386 laptop with 4MB and Windows 3.0, and it runs rather well.  I haven't been able to get WordPerfect 6.0 to run (requires 3.1 I think), but the only reason it would be slow is because WP6 sucked like that.  I recall my 50MHz 486 with 4MB and WP6, it was indeed slow.  WP6 wasn't "fast" until 2 or 3 years after the fact.

Besides, Windows Write is pretty good for a 1990-ish program.

[davidnix71]

Is the bus multiplier fixed? You should be able to clock it to 45 MHz without frying anything. 486's didn't even come with heat sinks. But with 4 meg of ram, only dos will run well (Win 3.1 and earlier were just gui's for dos).

[mobrien_12]

I had a 33 Mhz 386 laptop with a whopping 8 MB of ram with Win 3.1 on it.  It ran word 6.0 ok (I didn't know about Linux then) until I tried to write real papers for school with it... then the memory became a real problem.

[Pathos]

for linux you could try tomsrtbt, mulinux or basic linux. but its not really worth it.

there are some pretty cool old school apps for dos out there.

[Aloone_Jonez]

What will run very fast:  DR-DOS.  If you want a fast GUI layer, put OpenGEM/FreeGEM on top of it.  That's what the OpenGEM and FreeGEM projects are there for.

Sounds good but what programs can I run under these graphical desktops?
Could I run ABIWord?

A linux would be ok, but I think you would need to go with DSL.  I don't think you could run really run X-windows with that  little RAM, although it would make a very nice command line & SVGA box.

SVGA?
What do you mean it only has a VGA card? 640x480 16 colours (or 256 at 320x480) you know the deal. :confused:

Actually, you seriously might want to consider OS/2, either version 2 or warp 3.    With the blue spine editions you could run Windows 3.1 programs.  You are still limited by that RAM, but OS/2 is really good with low RAM systems.

Is it free though? At least as in

[Dark_Me]

OS/2 isn't open source and I don't think it's free ether. There are however alternatives. Like this. Also Wikipedia is God

[piratePenguin]

This article may be helpful, but I haven't read it,
http://www.dwheeler.com/essays/revive-laptop.html

[mobrien_12]

OS/2 is not open source, nor is it free of charge.  However you can get it on  EBAY for really, really cheap amounts of money.  I've seen it for like $3-$10.  If you go that route, you should go with version 2 or Warp 3.  Version 1 was weak, and Warp 4 really needs 8 MB.

Also, you didn't mention if it had a CD-ROM.  If it doesn't, you should get the diskette version of OS/2.

There's lots of free software for OS/2 on Hobbs.

You can get DR-DOS free of charge for personal use still I think.  Other DOS (MS-DOS, PC-DOS) would work too.  FreeDOS is available, but not sure how stable it is at this point, and you may run into software compatibility issues.

OpenGEM and FreeGEM are open source and free of charge.