Re: Appropriate Linux for twin CPU pentium-pro machine

From: S. Brown (HappyDragon_at_thiscave.net)
Date: 02/19/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 02:02:35 -0600

John Beardmore <wookie@wookie.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:hfzhmGvsToFCFw+p@wookie.demon.co.uk:

> I've been given a twin CPU pentium pro box.
>
> Granted the CPUs aren't up to much, but it has 256 meg of RAM and fairly
> quick Baracuda disks.
>
> Are there any current Linux distributions that will work out of the box
> with CPUs this old ?
>
> If not, is there a web site that details which distributions release
> will work with which generations of CPU ?
>
>
> Thanks, J/.

By "out of the box", if you mean the kernel is already multi-proc capable I
am not sure. However a nicely loaded system like that, for its age, would
probably be quite happy with Debian, Slackware, or Gentoo. The first two
will require a kernel recompile unless there are some unoffical smp kernel
packages, but if I remember Gentoo setup you can compile a kernel during
the rest of the install/compile. I find that an install of something like
Debian or Slackware with X11 and a wm like blackbox is quite snappy on a
mmx or equivalent speed.

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