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Comment by 72deluxe | Hacker News Reader

I kind of miss how speedy and usable a desktop like this was. I remember running Windows 95 on 64MB RAM (even did it on 16MB, barely) on a 486 DX2 66MHz (it was something someone else had thrown out, in the era of Pentium IIs, I was poor).

And then installing RedHat 6.0 from a magazine cover CD and using FVWM and wondering how I could make my feeble poor machine look like the glorious KDE2 and GNOME desktops gracing the pages of said magazine.

I miss KDE2's look TBH.

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64MB?? wow. My 486/33 had 4MB. I eventually was able to upgrade to 16MB (I think it cost like $400 though), and my linux kernel compile times went down from 8 hours to 12 minutes. That was the day I truly learned how much swapping affected performance.

My 386 PS/2 Model 70 had 2 MB and ran 16 MHz. I copied Windows 3.0 from a school computer, using the arj file compressor, to a bunch of diskettes and then to this computer. Started no problem when I typed "win" on the DOS prompt.

Yes, it was a bunch of SIMMs (I think - they had metal edge clips to destroy your fingers compared to modern DIMM insertion) that they chucked out at school (they gave them to me instead of binning them). It would have been more normal for 16MB in the days when a 486 was mainstream but this was many many years after 486 were considered ancient - 1998 to 2000 I think? I was poor and my paper-round only stretched to buying Micromart and looking at computers I couldn't afford.

Long after I had switched to Linux, I helped my grandmother with Windows 95 on a 486 DX4 at 100MHz. I had completely forgotten how snappy a UI could be on modest hardware.

Also KDE2 was indeed perfect. They had built all the features one needs in a desktop, and ever since everything has been half baked.

I liked KDE 3.5 as it had everything in it (Konqueror was useful with the protocols for SSH file transfer etc., it really did everything) but the KDE2 with the purpley CDE look was great.

Not so keen on modern Linux UIs. They seem to be copying macos (not a bad thing) but I am using LXDE or XFCE these days.

I remember Windows 95 being fast and able to keep up with keyboard shortcuts that you typed in a flurry. The modern systems can't. And in Windows 10, half of the metro apps and settings apps don't even have keyboard shortcuts. It's step back IMHO, and indicates that they were "designed" by users who only use the mouse.

8 megs and constantly swapping out virtual memory.

That was a popular expansion of the EMACS acronym. Eight Megs And Constantly Swapping. Coincidence, or were you referring to that?

Coincidence. Windows 95 really hit virtual memory at 8 megs or lower and constantly swapped out RAM.