Challenge completed
|Our challenge this podcast is to try and get old versions of Linux running. Mike got off to a good start and managed to get Ubuntu Warty Warthog running. I, though, fancied going a little further back in my virtual time machine. Before the birth of Ubuntu, before even Slackware, before distros had even been conceived of.
Before Linux was even really a operating system, there was release 0.00: The first bootable version of Linux. It’s pretty basic. Actually, it’s before it gained enough features to be considered basic. All it does is print out strings of As and Bs (see below). Proof indeed that great things come from small starts.
If you want to have a go yourself, you can get the files from Virtually Fun at http://virtuallyfun.superglobalmegacorp.com/?p=272.
I’ll now start moving forward in time to see how Linux has evolved over the years.
Mike: I think this means I win.
Yowzers! Don't think there's any way to beat that. Unless…
"Linus Torvalds has attributed his eventually inventing and developing the Linux kernel in part to his having owned a Sinclair QL in the 1980s."
So, if I can somehow magically find some code that Torvalds wrote for his QL back then, do I win? 🙂
You'll also have to get it to run, and I don't think qemu supports the Sinclair QL. If you can't find one, you could always try and build a computer based on the same CPU (http://www.ist-schlau.de/). It might work.
I'm feeling quite comfortable up here resting on my laurels.
Next challenge:
Install / use Vinux blind.
http://vinuxproject.org/
Would be great if you could do something with it live on the show, because audio + podcast = makes sense.
You idiot. Linux prints out messages about it's state.
If it prints out all B's it means you have broken hardware.
Since you're testing it using an emulator I consider this to be a major fail.
Why aren't you testing it on your grandma's old PC? Huh? You ought to try things out FOR REAL before claining you know even what you're talking about. Emulation AIN'T running linux on hardware – it's a fail. A fail I tells ya!
Don't you even have access to a few old machines from around your friends that they claim won't work that you could try it out FOR REAL on?!!
Shame on you for taking the easy (emulated) route out!\
MK.
And seriously – find some kind of old hardware, like maybe an old Sun or something truly odd to test it out on. What have you got to lose?
Forgive me if I seem a bit grumpy. But I mean really. Where are your balls, Eh? You could easily buy an old pentium and see for sure just what a difference it made. There must be a few left over from the penguin towers. or did they sell them off for capitol gains?
Hmm>
I am the idiot.
If emulation doesn't work properly it isn't your fault.
I came across as being cross. Even rude. I apologise.
It just seemed to me that this challenge implied that you
were all going to revivify old (dare I say ancient) hardware
that is clearly easily available and reusable and worthy of
decent appreciation given that the challenge is "to use
old distros" it seemed immediatlely (and apparantly wrongly)
obvious that you would be testing it on existing hardware.
But i was angry, rude and inappropriate in my comments and
I apologise. I am sorry.
MK
No worries. The challenge is all about trying old distros, regardless of the hardware underneath. Yes, it would be cool to dig out old kit as well, but that's not so easy… Ben and I are on the move at lot now, with only our laptops for company, so it's not easy to lug around early-'90s boxes with floppy drives to try Slackware 1.0 on! And you know, we’re doing this for the community, all for free, so cut us some slack 🙂
Anyway, in terms of ancient-stuff-on-ancient-hardware: I managed to get Coherent running on a 486 laptop a few years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29
Yes, I apologise again. profusely. Stupid comment to make in the first place and probably should be removed from the postings, if you can do that. I really don't mean to be rude, and dare I say the post is unworthy of my intent. If you can just delete that post or just ignore it. I really should think severall times before hitting the post button. Please convey my apologies to Ben, also.
I think you guys are awesome for doing this challege! I learned a lot about linux from this one. Reading old source code is fun, even though C isn't my first language.
Keep up the awesome work!
Yes I have fond memories of Redhat before Fedora back in the 90's
If you are ever in the Silicon Valley you must go to Weird Stuff in Sunnyvale and see stuff you may have paid $$$ for in the $3.00 bins or maybe they're $1.50 bins. No I don't work there. Thanks for accepting my challenge, I was pleasantly surprised.
Ben says:
>Proof indeed that great things come from small starts …
>…
>…moving forward in time to see how Linux has evolved over the years.
I agree this is the hands down winner!
Totally awesome Ben and Mike, you two are much braver then I. I glanced quickly at some old Ygdrassil and Slackware 7 disks I have laying around, and I can't say that my first inclination was to relive all that 'joy'. Great excercise in appreciation of how far open source has come tho, thanks for sharing.