The last "News Milestone" is May 3, 2004, and I can't find any other timestamps or dates on the website.
It'd be OK for a project like that to have old, frozen software versions as long as it receives security updates, but the website makes it damn near impossible to assess whether any maintenance is taking place at all.
To be fair, "old hardware" is kind of frozen in time by definition. DSL is what it is. If you want to play with hardware with 32mb of ram, it does what it does. It isn't really an OS you want to "use" or "expand upon". I would not suggest to connect it to the Internet or expect any kind of updates, security or otherwise.
The main case for it at this point is retro computing. Most retro computing enthusiasts run era correct OS (MacOS7-9, Mac OS X, Win9x, DOS, AIX/IRIX/SunOS/HPUX, BeOS, Amiga 3x, etc). Those are not getting security updates either.
I put it in the same category as Haiku, Visopsys, AROS and ReactOS, fun toy for older computers. Not very relevant as day-to-day. I still have and expand a collection of live CDs for the P3/PR era laptop. Again, those don't get security updates, but are fun to explore.
Personally, I am more into Linux window managers (and AwesomeWM maintainer) to recreate the interesting concepts from those OS rather than rice 90s silicon. However I really enjoyed using a Pentium1 laptop full time for a few months in university in the late 00's just to prove a point. But for that I compiled my own OS rather than use a distro. If you want to get the most out of these machine, that's the way.
> To be fair, "old hardware" is kind of frozen in time by definition.
No, not at all.
It's a continuously-moving baseline, because it's relative to now. And where "old" begins is a judgement call.
So, for instance, one useful definition is "not capable of usefully running a contemporary OS."
Since all current mainstream Linuxes (Ubuntu, Fedora, even Arch, etc.) are 64-bit that implies a 32-bit machine. One with a reasonable amount of RAM for the time, a gigabyte or two say, but which can't be upgraded. Intel Atom chips were mostly 32-bit until a decade and a bit ago. Core Solo was quite quick but 32-bit only.
Some early 64-bit chips have 32-bit firmware and so can't run a 32-bit OS.
So there is a moving baseline of machines that can't take >=4GB RAM, can only boot a 32-bit OS, maybe have 1 CPU core, but were made in the 1st decade of this century and remain fully-functional, with wifi etc.
DSL isn't very useful on such kit, and if it works, it's insecure.
So, no, it's not frozen in time, and no, a never-updated 20YO snapshot isn't very useful.
DSL, Slax, and Puppy Dog Linux were all my go-to back in the day, because I had terrible internet (Australia, yay) and hand-me-down computers! I think DSL isn't up to date anymore though. I wonder if Slax et al. still exist?
250mb 32-bit ISO too :) Neat! One of the first Linux adventures I had was trying to install Slax to a HDD: It really wants to be a live CD, so it was a fun challenge that taught me a lot about Linux at the time.
I like bunsenlabs on old hardware. It's Debian based with openbox, some bits from xfce, and some custom config utilities. It's a continuation of Crunchbang Linux which was discontinued. Openbox is very nice and light, but the default configuration on Debian is not really usable. Xfce or Mate on Debian can be good choices as well.
Bunsen Labs is pretty good, but IMHO the Crunchbang++ team took the ideas rather further and made something better.
I wish they would just settle their differences and work together.
Or, if that would involve swallowing too much humble pie, make them more different -- for example, move Bunsen Labs onto a Devuan or MX or antiX basis, and take it systemd-free.
I wish either would just release as a Debian repo with a desktop metapackage instead of a whole distro. What specifically do you like better about Crunchbang++?
Disclaimer: it's about 5 years since I tried them head-to-head.
I found my notes from back then on Reddit. At the time, I said:
«
CB++ feels like a fairly straightforward re-implementation, whereas BLL has some added features -- the live CD, a few shortcut icons in the panel, a slightly tweaked Conky layout, etc.
»
Used to do a lot of work with the "cheap" Digital Ocean instances, which were 512M RAM at the time (like 2015-2017). You could get more usefulness out of them running 32-bit OS builds.
I'm currently playing with Alpine Linux on slow laptops and netbooks. The base install is super tiny, but can be extended to become a full fledged desktop, albeit still musl based, therefore smaller than "regular" distros.
That's really interesting to me. Do you have a blog? I'd be quite interested to read any highlights or takeaways you may have from your tinkering.
I spent a weekend playing with Alpine at some point. I really appreciate Alpine's documentation wiki[0] and apk is a delightful package manager. Plus, as you say, the disk footprint stays significantly smaller than an otherwise equivalent setup on Ubuntu (my main point of comparison).
But, something I rely on turned out to have compatibility problems with musl (can't recall what right now), so it ended up not being a good fit for me.
That said, I like your suggestion of using it specifically on old/slow hardware. Might revisit it at some point.
38 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 89.5 ms ] threadI don't like the background on web page enough that I got off of it before downloading the distro. Please give me an option to visually assaulted.
The last "News Milestone" is May 3, 2004, and I can't find any other timestamps or dates on the website.
It'd be OK for a project like that to have old, frozen software versions as long as it receives security updates, but the website makes it damn near impossible to assess whether any maintenance is taking place at all.
Because you specifically pointed it out:
> Delicate Linux would be preferable.
In https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33399233
What's Haiku got to do with anything? We were talking about 32-bit Linux distros for older computers, AFAICS.
The main case for it at this point is retro computing. Most retro computing enthusiasts run era correct OS (MacOS7-9, Mac OS X, Win9x, DOS, AIX/IRIX/SunOS/HPUX, BeOS, Amiga 3x, etc). Those are not getting security updates either.
I put it in the same category as Haiku, Visopsys, AROS and ReactOS, fun toy for older computers. Not very relevant as day-to-day. I still have and expand a collection of live CDs for the P3/PR era laptop. Again, those don't get security updates, but are fun to explore.
Personally, I am more into Linux window managers (and AwesomeWM maintainer) to recreate the interesting concepts from those OS rather than rice 90s silicon. However I really enjoyed using a Pentium1 laptop full time for a few months in university in the late 00's just to prove a point. But for that I compiled my own OS rather than use a distro. If you want to get the most out of these machine, that's the way.
No, not at all.
It's a continuously-moving baseline, because it's relative to now. And where "old" begins is a judgement call.
So, for instance, one useful definition is "not capable of usefully running a contemporary OS."
Since all current mainstream Linuxes (Ubuntu, Fedora, even Arch, etc.) are 64-bit that implies a 32-bit machine. One with a reasonable amount of RAM for the time, a gigabyte or two say, but which can't be upgraded. Intel Atom chips were mostly 32-bit until a decade and a bit ago. Core Solo was quite quick but 32-bit only.
Some early 64-bit chips have 32-bit firmware and so can't run a 32-bit OS.
So there is a moving baseline of machines that can't take >=4GB RAM, can only boot a 32-bit OS, maybe have 1 CPU core, but were made in the 1st decade of this century and remain fully-functional, with wifi etc.
DSL isn't very useful on such kit, and if it works, it's insecure.
So, no, it's not frozen in time, and no, a never-updated 20YO snapshot isn't very useful.
I have very fond memories of being a broke student with crappy computers, booting stuff like DSL, slitaz and puppy.
Oh neat, Slax still does! https://www.slax.org/
250mb 32-bit ISO too :) Neat! One of the first Linux adventures I had was trying to install Slax to a HDD: It really wants to be a live CD, so it was a fun challenge that taught me a lot about Linux at the time.
? Raspbian is for ARM, what are you talking about?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32074871
https://i.imgur.com/aD8WEzD.png
https://i.imgur.com/aD8WEzD.png
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArchBang https://archbang.org/
I wish they would just settle their differences and work together.
Or, if that would involve swallowing too much humble pie, make them more different -- for example, move Bunsen Labs onto a Devuan or MX or antiX basis, and take it systemd-free.
I found my notes from back then on Reddit. At the time, I said:
« CB++ feels like a fairly straightforward re-implementation, whereas BLL has some added features -- the live CD, a few shortcut icons in the panel, a slightly tweaked Conky layout, etc. »
It's a good Sunday.
(It's not likely worth it for most cases, but in theory half-size pointers can help.)
Used to do a lot of work with the "cheap" Digital Ocean instances, which were 512M RAM at the time (like 2015-2017). You could get more usefulness out of them running 32-bit OS builds.
Get going! By the time X finishes compiling we'll probably be at 128 bit.
I forget exactly what I was trying to crosscompile but I think it was arm on x64.
[0] http://www.toms.net/rb/tomsrtbt.FAQ
Of course, the irony is that this web page might not load on older systems, but love it anyway.
I spent a weekend playing with Alpine at some point. I really appreciate Alpine's documentation wiki[0] and apk is a delightful package manager. Plus, as you say, the disk footprint stays significantly smaller than an otherwise equivalent setup on Ubuntu (my main point of comparison).
But, something I rely on turned out to have compatibility problems with musl (can't recall what right now), so it ended up not being a good fit for me.
That said, I like your suggestion of using it specifically on old/slow hardware. Might revisit it at some point.
[0] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Main_Page