Modern Linux Runs On Ancient Toshiba

[steven36]

While Microsoft no longer supports those of its operating systems that were in heavy use into the early 2000s, support for old hardware is not typically something that you will have to worry about if you run Linux on your machines.

 

 

 

 

Sure, there will be driver issues from time to time, and you might have to do some things by hand, but if you’re using legacy hardware you’ll want a Linux distribution of some sort.

 

Especially if you’re running it on one of the first laptops to ever feature a Pentium processor of any kind.

 

This is a Toshiba T4900CT which [MingcongBai] has been able to spruce up by installing a simplified version of the AOSC OS Linux distribution. The distribution is known for its simplified user interface, and this particular one runs a “Retro” command-line-only version. Upon startup (which takes over two minutes), the user can view the hardware and software specs: Linux kernel 4.19.67 (released within the past year) on a 75 MHz Intel processor.

 

Getting old equipment to work, even if the software is available, is a challenge and this one stands out for the historical noteworthiness of the laptop. We didn’t see it connect to the Internet, but if it ever does we still keep Retro Hackaday up specifically for situations like this.

 

 

 

Source

[steven36]

As You can see this PC came with Windows 95 here

 

 

[halvgris]

in short that old laptop or pc can be resold.

 

not for a major profit but money towards an upgrade.

[luisam]

Toshiba T4900CT "from the box" originally came with Windows 3,11 and MS DOS 6.22. Supported maximum 40 Mb RAM I'm not sure if it could use a drive bigger than those 820 Mb but considering it was released in 1994, HDD capacity looked quite enough. Guess they reached the limit else probably might have installed a bigger drive. Maybe a partitioned 2 Gb drive could run.

Now, I guess Windows 98 SE could be installed, with Pentium processor it can work with 32 MB RAM. With Windows SE, the user also might install a USB port and a 120 Gb drive. The first Pentium processor supported perfectly Windows 98. Actually I rememeber that a neighbour fellow had a Toshiba laptop with a 486 processor and was running Windows 98 - I helped him to reinstall it after a crash he had.

So, depending on the proposed use someone means to give to this laptop and the old software available, he could weight the convenience of using this new but simplified version of AOSC OS Linux distribution or old Windows 98 SE.

[luisam]

7 hours ago, halvgris said:

not for a major profit but money towards an upgrade.

 

Searched at e-bay and found it sold for 125 USD and another one on sale for 250 USD. Yyou can get a new laptop for this value so I guess it's most a "vintage" value than the actual value of an old computer. We are talking about a 25 yers old laptop, in 100% condition. Probably you can buy something much more recent and with more capacity for much less.

[steven36]

10 hours ago, luisam said:

Toshiba T4900CT "from the box" originally came with Windows 3,11 and MS DOS 6.22. Supported maximum 40 Mb RAM I'm not sure if it could use a drive bigger than those 820 Mb but considering it was released in 1994, HDD capacity looked quite enough. Guess they reached the limit else probably might have installed a bigger drive. Maybe a partitioned 2 Gb drive could run.

Now, I guess Windows 98 SE could be installed, with Pentium processor it can work with 32 MB RAM. With Windows SE, the user also might install a USB port and a 120 Gb drive. The first Pentium processor supported perfectly Windows 98. Actually I rememeber that a neighbour fellow had a Toshiba laptop with a 486 processor and was running Windows 98 - I helped him to reinstall it after a crash he had.

So, depending on the proposed use someone means to give to this laptop and the old software available, he could weight the convenience of using this new but simplified version of AOSC OS Linux distribution or old Windows 98 SE.

What this guy is doing is working on a spin  of  AOSC Linux for all older PCs  From Pentium to Atom , this just the start of his project hes a dev at AOSC Linux. I had a Gateway Windows 95 upgraded  to Windows 98  I got online with it years ago with dialup  when My XP PC missed up it was not fast enough to do much and programs you had get from oldversion.com  or internet archive and it was too slow . and that was like a long time ago. I'm not sure if it's still around  here or not but the thing is a lot of old pcs still work .

 

I have a AMD Athlon XP,  here that i got Linux working on back in like 2016 it was too slow  with modern  Anti X  Linux  X took up too much CPU  and the worse part about it was using web browsers , but wifi worked  out the box so I put  XP SP3  on it  and never turned it on since  I never even been able to find working wifi drivers  for it with XP on it ever ,  so other  than that time i had Linux on it it never been on the internet since the early 2000s when we had dailup. 

 

If he can make a linux distro  that gets updates and things and runs fast like hes trying too do id use his spin on it.                                                                                                                                             

 

[BimBamSmash]

I am impressed that hardware is still breathing. Things sure used to last in the old times.

 

Nowadays portable hardware is so jam packed inside a small container that heat eventually kills either the battery or the GPU on laptops. And if they don't die on their own, manufacturers roll out firmware to slow them down to a crawl. A friend owned a 2010 Macbook that was working remarkably well - until Apple fixed something with a firmware in a few years back - likely the spectre and meltdown patch.

[PastJeff]

I think this might convince me to finally try out Linux and ditch Windows