A nerd nostalgia thread of possible #RetroComputing interest:
From 1993-1994, I was a “technical assistant” in the RF Engineering department of #Comcast#Cellular. Back then, Comcast was a scrappy regional cable #TV operator making its first foray into #mobile telephony, not the multinational #telecommunications and media behemoth we know today. (1/6)
I was a twenty-year-old college #dropout who had lucked into the job after the department’s director noticed that his temporary secretary (me) was way better at automating repetitive tasks in #Microsoft Office than typing up memos.
So he hired me outright (neglecting to increase my administrative-assistant-level wage 😖) and set me loose helping the engineers with their Sun #Unix workstations and #Intel#i486-based PCs running #Windows for Workgroups. (2/6)
@macmittens@sterophonick OFC it is a quality-of-life improvement to have the option to grab a binary instead if having to compile it yourself, and espechally on #i486-SX and early #amd64 machines I can see having an install take minutes or hours instead of days or a week as a undisputed bonus.
I do kinda follow the same with OS/1337 in that I want things to be provided as binaries ready to go but also make #reproducibleBuilds the norm and thus allow full verifyability of everything!
I've been re-reconverting a lot of my "stuff" to the BSDs (Free, Open, Net). It's refreshing. The Linux every-tool-has-to-be-a-swiss-army-knife ethos is exhausting after a while. The relative simplicity and clean organization of *BSD (especially OpenBSD) re-affirms my fondness for UNIX-y things.
You might think there's not that much difference but, in many cases, I'd rather admin a BSD box. Try it, you'll see.
Also, NetBSD is soo lean, it has made my old Pentium III almost useful again. Even with 333Mhz and 128 MB of RAM 🙃
@rory Yeah, I get what you mean, with THICC Distros like @ubuntu having dropped #i686 support half a decade ago...
I do however think that #thinn and #minimalist#Linux isn't just possible (see #TinyCore) but also could be made to work from a single 1440kB 3,5" FDD...
But what if you need some minimalist Linux on said machine?
Even if it's just to dd a new OS on to update those?
Because I do know at least one logistics firm that does that to their systems, and since their #IoT stuff is within #SOLAS-regulated areas, it's a pain in the rear to get onsite for quite good reasons.
I'm convinced that it's possible to get a #i486-SX #linux with #toybox and #dropbear into 1440kB since someone managed that with way less optimization and with ample wiggle room [272kB] using Linux 5.13.0-rc2 and #BusyBox 1.33.1 manual and not even halfassing optimization at all.
So yeah I've to look deeper into it and see what I'm missing.
Espechally since in terms of Hardware it makes more sense to [me to] optimize per-architecture [I've not seen VIA or AMD NICs on an amd64 or arm5r11 system]...
Granted the #i486 version is my primary target since it's the one most desperately in need of something like OS/1337 and I can't commit the time necessary to support more as I've got € 0 in funding so it's not as if I can quit my dayjob to commit fully to it.
Currently I just need to find out what went wrong and see how I can make OS/1337 go brrrrrr.
So if anyone has any ideas, please feel free to contact me: https://mstdn.social/@kkarhan/111409592616485280
Also #boosts appreciated!
:boost_ok: :boost_requested: :boost_animated:
@SweetAIBelle I just shoved it into Virtualbox as 32bit (other) Linux and put it's resources more in line with a realistic #i486-SX compatible with like 32MB RAM and the oldest components possible to emulate.
i was digging around in my old computers for a sata cable earlier for the dualboot and the gateway computer is just so old that the motherboard doesn't even support sata and instead only supports IDE
i have no hopes for it running linux if i ever get a new PSU for it
I'm trying to play with SH4 CPUs in a few set-top boxes I have. This is difficult as the whole STLinux FTP server is long gone.
If you, or anyone you know has these files:
@gorplop right now I'm still working on getting like a 1440kB 3,5" FDD relese (version 0.1) for #i486-SX done but in theory everything should just cross-compile to #SuperH 4 / #SH4...
I just wanted to make something more practical to use than #Floppinux whilst also making something a bit more versatile than #mkroot.
@HopelessDemigod The current goal is to get a 0.1 release that fits on a 1.400kB 3,5" FDD and includes #Linux (ideally 6.6.6 for maximum meme factor) #Toybox and #dbclient (#Dropbear#SSH as SSH-Client only) compiled against #musl-cross and bootable on any #i486 and up.
Wow, @linux does actually improve efficiency over time...
I just compiled a minimal kernel 6.5 for OS/1337 targeting #i486 instead of #i686 and the resulting binary is even 10kB smaller than the one for 6.4.12...
For real: That's awesome cuz it allows me to make the #Floppy version for #486SX a reality and still have #Toybox & #dropbear as #SSH client in it...
Cudos to @torvalds and the maintainers for that:
They really did cleanup the codebase and made it #smol|ler!