PsychOS Linux – 32-bit distro for older computers | Hacker News Reader

PsychOS Linux – 32-bit distro for older computers

psychoslinux.gitlab.io

58 pointsindigodaddy38 comments

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Gentoo still builds i486 versions: https://www.gentoo.org/downloads/

Get going! By the time X finishes compiling we'll probably be at 128 bit.

Can't you cross compile it on your 16 core machine?

I’m sure it’s possible but I’ve never gotten it to work even trying https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Distcc/Cross-Compiling

I forget exactly what I was trying to crosscompile but I think it was arm on x64.

I like small retro hw supporting distros. Puppy Fossa is running on several of my machines.

I 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.

Ironically, the background animation stutters even on fast hardware.

Visually assaulted? That shit is still "transferring data" and pegging a core at 100%.

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. »

I loved Crunchbang, there was also ArchBang, which I used a few times.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ArchBang https://archbang.org/

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.

[0] https://wiki.alpinelinux.org/wiki/Main_Page

There's some argument for using a 32-bit distro on systems with 4GB of RAM or less - https://www.sevarg.net/2021/12/18/raspberry-pi-32-bit-vs-64-...

(It's not likely worth it for most cases, but in theory half-size pointers can help.)

I can recall it being important in the past.

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.

Pshaw. tomsrtbt runs great off a floppy [0]

[0] http://www.toms.net/rb/tomsrtbt.FAQ

Raspbian on an old dell laptop. Chrome with a reload page extension updates the weather every hour.

> Raspbian on an old dell laptop.

? Raspbian is for ARM, what are you talking about?

there's an x86 version specially for old computers: https://www.raspberrypi.com/software/raspberry-pi-desktop/

Well, you learn something every day! That's fascinating; I'll have to take a look. Thanks:)

I've written about it on the Register, and tried to bring it to HN's attention, too.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32074871

I didn't know it was so interesting. Here's a pic of a raspbian on a dell e6410

https://i.imgur.com/aD8WEzD.png

I didn't know it was so interesting. Here's a pic of a raspbian on a dell e6410

https://i.imgur.com/aD8WEzD.png

Black Ray-Bans, drop top Porsche, and a Maxell Metal Cassette playing PsychOS trailer music.

It's a good Sunday.

This is the coolest thing ever. Fantastic retro design! Click on the PsychDOS for screenshots, too.

Of course, the irony is that this web page might not load on older systems, but love it anyway.

Try Damn Small Linux

That's been abandoned, right?

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.

Haiku has 3D support on some AMD GPUs.

Delicate Linux would be preferable. Or better, just plain NetBSD.

Hasn't been updated in 7 years, from what I see. I suspect that makes it rather unsafe to use online, pretty comparable to, say, WinXP.

False. Haiku has nightly builds since forever.

I was talking about Delicate Linux, not Haiku.

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.

Ah, sorry, I was about to answer another comment.

I see. It shines on old hardware.

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?

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.

Abandoned, but one of the guys behind it went on to make Tiny Core linux.

I have very fond memories of being a broke student with crappy computers, booting stuff like DSL, slitaz and puppy.

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