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+--- Thread: The Next Few Months... DSL into 2025 (/thread-198.html)
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RE: The Next Few Months... DSL into 2025 - grindstone - 08-20-2025
We can't guess what you want or what you're trying to do. There are things that might be done (or not) -- what exactly are you trying to do and what problems are you finding? I haven't run a P2 for probably 10 years (and that was full-up with 400MB of RAM and still did fine with a big swap), so I don't know how far the whole software ecosystem has moved.
Talk more. We can't read your mind. My guess is that all a microkernel version would do is be less compatible with hardware you have, but I may be wrong. If you want to do the work, the Hurd links and breadcrumb trails are in the Hurd announcement.
What else have you tried? Slitaz? Puppy? DIY/homebrew? Talk about the whole trip and help us figure out where you are and what you are trying to get done. Maybe one "answer" is for us to pick a machine, focus on that, and see what might be done. Do you have wired networks at all, is it all serial or headless or what? Maybe you can tether USB v2 from a phone? Are you CD-only or can you do a netinstall.
Do you have any newer machines? You may do best running a remote session from a faster machine or using screen etc. How many of what are you trying to do what with? Are these all for other people to recycle, etc? Is everything filled to maximum capacity with RAM--that's far and away the biggest benefit you can get from anything--do that first no matter what. Is it hardware compatibility that's the issue (X drivers or VIA cpu's or what). Does any sort of linux still run on them--if so, can you please post the results of inxi -zv7
There is no solution for how fat full-featured browsers are in 2025--at least none that are safe to take out on a network...which leaves the old versions and air-gapping the boxes OR learning to live with text or otherwise limited browsing (netsurf is pretty good, though)
Help us to help you. (I'm not making a Hurd-anything, though
) If you have some use case for which there ends-up being more widespread interest, that feedback alone would be useful.
RE: The Next Few Months... DSL into 2025 - lordmmx - 08-21-2025
i do have a dell optiplex 9010 that i upgraded to the max but i like to have fun with older hardware i used a dual pentium 3 back the late 2010's (until firefox got to slow to watch youtube video's) i want to be able to do what i used to back then. i heard iceweasel is being developed again in the haiku os project not sure if it can be incorporated in your project but would be nice. getting rid of the quantum features since it requires more instructions out of the cpu.
RE: The Next Few Months... DSL into 2025 - grindstone - 08-21-2025
OK, re YT, that's the sort of thing that the antiX people have been working at for years. Read that board--there are many, many options to view YT, but some are just different front ends for mpv (which we already have). Getting any of them to work right/completely for whatever you want to do (audio only, whatever) is more reading/work than just launching FFox. Blame Google/YT that it's not easier to use/keep-up with yt-dlp, etc, not the distros.
Means to tolerably run current full-bloat software on 25 year old hardware wont be found--that's just life at the trailing edge of hardware. It's more reading, it's more work--but there are improvements that can be made by really knowing your needs and substituting applications. In the end, it only matters whether or not you are happy with what you figure out for your own usage. (All this is part of why what antiX has provided and what John has done with DSL is of such value--we already have some solutions for your interests--just keep reading the antiX board re YT viewing.) As "friendly" [sic?] as the upstream people have made things (control center utilities, etc), it's still an exercise in economy--less integrated and less accessible than loading, say, Mint. DSL has pared-down some of that further and substituted many apps. It's what we all know--the ease-of-use thing is a tradeoff with performance, pretty much like security is a tradeoff with convenience. Living in DSL is a choice about where you're going to "live" and that implicitly places one in a more "hands-on" usage just like antiX is more that way than using MX w/ xfce, etc.
There are still some older versions of antiX that are supported yet, too, FWIW. Maybe you remember when you moved to linux to begin with--it took time and a little bit of work to figure out how to do everything you were used to doing, but you found your way--and it was just different. You got it done, but it was different. So it continues to be with replacing apps within linux distros, IMO.
Maybe you are at the point where you want to learn about making your own spins for your own stuff--that's on the upstream board, too. Reading there can sometimes be a slog because there's a lot of old information, too, but I'm still learning there every day, too. The group is great, active, and knowledgeable--just do your homework before you post inquiries--same as anywhere else.
OTOH, if you want to run 2010 linux distros on 2010 hardware, antiX would just fly, compared to antiX 23/bookworm 12-based releases. No one knows what's acceptable for your usage but you. Maybe you use that screaming Dell (for DSL terms, anyway) to make a terminal server for the ancient boxes. Whatever it is, you can make some fun and keep them out of the landfills (a pretty common goal for a lot of us, here).
If you get an old-old box and want to configure/customize for that, start a thread and we'll pile in there after we see what you're working on. None of this discussion should've been in John's thread (for which I apologize) and maybe he can move it elsewhere.