If you don't mind throwing down a thousand bucks or so every few years for a new computer to run the latest and greatest version of Windows, then you probably don't care that Linux is beautifully backward compatible. Old versions are widely available, and even supported, and that means you can have a modern and supportable OS running your 10 year old Pentium I computer. Read on for more.
The ability to run on resource-poor systems is one of the most compelling arguments in favor of using Linux. Many systems that worked fine (more or less) with Windows 3.x never got upgraded with enough RAM and a big enough hard drive to handle Windows 95. I have no doubt that even more systems will be left behind by Windows 2000.
Linux reportedly will work on 80386 (and even 80286) systems. Yes, you can run Linux on almost anything, but do you really want to? Maybe you do, and maybe you don't. Remember, if you're not happy trying to run Windows 98 on your 80486 system with 4Mb of RAM and 120Mb hard drive, you're not really going to be that much happier running Linux with X on the same system.
Not that either one is really all that practical (or possible). But you might be able to get a command-line Linux on that system, or set it up as a router or print server or something else. With Windows, you don't have any real options beyond upgrading the system beyond all recognition (or sense, for that matter.
A Case History Installation
So what kind of system do you need for Linux? Any Pentium system - even a slow Pentium - will turn in adequate performance for basic applications, even with X. If you're happy running Linux from a command line in character mode, then 80386 or 80486 systems will probably work for you. If you need workstation level performance with graphical and compute-intensive applications, then you'll probably be unhappy with anything less than a "modern" CPU.
For example, I had a 75Mhz Pentium DEC Starion PC with 16Mb RAM and a 1Gb hard drive that ran Windows 95 once upon a time. Performance was pretty sad. I upgraded the system, and the Starion got stuck in a closet for awhile until it became my Linux hobby box.
With Red Hat Linux 5.x on it, it did fine at the command line but running X ranged from sluggish to excruciatingly slow. I tried increasing the swap partition size from 16Mb to 32Mb to 48Mb, but this was not a system I could happily run Netscape Navigator on. Which didn't matter too much as I was mostly using it as a router.
But then I decided I needed a Linux workstation and wasn't ready to shell out for a new machine, so I upgraded the Starion to 72Mb of RAM. At which point performance upgraded from snail-like under X to adequate. Which is fine, considering that system is otherwise unusable as a desktop machine.
The 1Gb hard drive is also plenty for my purposes, and has actually served as a server, mostly to give me a backup to my backup from my Windows desktop. I run Samba on this system quite happily (and could probably do it without the extra RAM, too).
Though you can run Linux on many different systems, configurations will vary depending on the need. The cool thing about Linux is that you can install the same OS on a turbo-charged dual processor 700Mhz Pentium system as you do on an old 80286. And each will turn in appropriate performance.
How Fast Do You Want Your CPU to Go Today?
You can use Linux as a desktop or workstation OS, or as a server OS. Or as a router OS, or some other special-purpose OS. It's pretty obvious that different applications will have different system requirements. You can probably get away with building a departmental router or firewall or a print server on a pre-Pentium processor: these applications aren't going to tax an 80486 CPU too much.
Servers need a bit more power. Email or web or busy file/print servers need at least a Pentium CPU. So you can actually turn an old desktop PC into a file server - but only if you trust it enough, have enough backup on it, and don't mind that the hardware will likely crap out on you at the most inconvenient moment. But if you're putting it into a SOHO, the cost savings over buying a real server with error-correcting RAM, RAID and SCSI tape backup may be tempting.
If you have plenty of patience or don't need a lot of graphics support, you can probably use the same systems as X terminals. A 75Mhz or faster Pentium (with enough RAM - at least 32Mb) should be fine for casual workstation use. Though you'll be happier with a faster CPU, maybe a Pentium II or AMD K6 or anything running over 200Mhz.
Hard Drives: Size Does Matter
...but not as much as it does for Windows. A small one doesn't disqualify you, and people actually sometimes run things like Linux routers/firewalls on systems that have no hard drive at all. The kernel boots from a floppy and all it does is forward packets.
More realistically, if you're planning on using Linux to do any kind of application, you'll probably be unhappy with less than a couple hundred megabytes of hard drive. That should be enough to get the basic kernel, basic Linux stuff, X, and an application. It would be a very tight squeeze, though.
Servers want at least that much, though it depends on what kind of server you're running. A webserver without much data to serve can run small, but an email server for a large group of heavy email users needs plenty of disk to store all the mail.
As for a Linux workstation, I've been pretty happy with my 1Gb hard drive: it's enough space to install everything from the Red Hat distribution, and it's enough for me to store files from other systems. And these days, hard drives are pretty cheap so you can upgrade to a multi-gigabyte drive for under $100.
Back in October 1999 I picked up a couple of IBM 15.2Gb drives for about $120 each; if you shop carefully these days you should be able to find multi-hundred-gigabyte drives for less than $200.
Is 8 Too Few? 64 Too Many?
RAM prices, like gasoline, can fluctuate widely in a short time. A few years ago in springtime RAM was cheap; by the end of that summer it was expensive and by October it was sky-high. But no matter what it costs, if you don't have enough of it your system won't be happy.
The more RAM you've got, the better off you'll be, within reason. You can install Linux on a system with only 8Mb of RAM, but any Linux system will work better with 64Mb of RAM. More than that may be overkill. If your CPU has an L2 cache (onboard storage used to cache stuff that can't be held in CPU registers) of less than 512Kb, then more than 64Mb won't really help you much.
So, basically, you should try to come up with a RAM upgrade, as much as you can fit into your system. A bare minimum of 64Mb for a superannuated PC turned into a Linux desktop workstation; more recent machines should be upgraded to as much as will fit your systemboard and budget.
Upgrade the Old One or Buy a New One?
Let's say you've got an old slow PC sitting in a corner somewhere gathering dust. Let's say it's got a 75Mhz CPU, 16Mb RAM, and a 1Gb hard drive (because that's just the beast I had sitting around). New computers are incredibly cheap these days, so why bother with such an out of date contraption?
Should you upgrade it or just leave it to collect more dust and buy a new one?
"Why should I bother with an upgrade?" you ask. I say, "yeah, sure." You've got a reliable system, let's say, with a working CD ROM, video and network card. If you shop around, an upgrade to 64Mb will cost about $125 and a new 3-4Gb hard drive something like $75. You've now got a Linux workstation for $200.
"But I don't want to mess around with an upgrade." "OK," I say, "don't bother, just buy a new one." After all, you can get a really cheapo system for $400, and it'll have a faster CPU (maybe an AMD K6 or something else running 266Mhz or even faster, up to maybe 380-400Mhz). You'll get a 3-4Gb (or even bigger) hard drive.
But wait a second. You may have to pay extra for a CD ROM drive. And another thing is that sound and video support may be built into the motherboard instead of separate cards. Which means that you may have trouble getting Linux to run on the system, unless you buy it from the vendor with Linux installed on it already. Otherwise, you may have to spring for a new video card. Your $400 PC could quickly turn into a $550 PC, which is becoming not so cheap.
At the end of the day, the "cheap" system may wind up costing you a fair amount. So, maybe you should upgrade. But hang on a sec - that upgraded system is pretty old, and what happens when the CD ROM blows out? Add another $50 or so. Now, you've got $250 sunk into the system, and it's still running an ancient CPU.
The key is to keep the system in line with the application. And if you want to buy a new system, brace yourself to spend about double the cheap bottom-feeding brands and get something decent. You can shop online for a real nice little system with name-brand components and come up with a fine computer for less than $1,000: an AMD K6-3 450Mhz CPU, 64Mb RAM, 6Gb hard drive, CD ROM, maybe even a second hard drive. And you could even run Windows 2000 on it if you wanted to.
The same goes for a full-scale server: shop for the components you need, and you can do better. I put together a dual-Pentium Pro 200Mhz server on an Intel motherboard for well under $1,000 (but that's another story).
In Conclusion
I wrote this article several years ago, and have left it largely intact,
changing just a bit here and there to bring it slightly up to date. The
principles remain the same: why upgrade systems that work fine, just because
they won't run the latest versions of some commercial software? If it works,
don't mess with it.
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