I have an old 486 box collecting dust, and I thought I might turn it into a webserver. I'd like it to be secure and have modern(ish) facilities like mod_perl and php. Is there a version of SuSE which is still currently supported (for Apache security updates) which will run on such an old box?
You could actually try your luck with 8.0 - I had an old first-gen Pentium with only 32M of RAM (a lot less than the official minimum for install) and no CD drive. Get yourself a copy of Tom's Root Boot (www.toms.net IIRC) and boot with that first so you can partition the drive, and give it a sizeable swap partition. Then, floppy boot the SuSE installer, and activate the swap as soon as YaST allows you to - the installer will then work. Packages on the SuSE CD's are i386 built (not i586 like on Mandrake) and so should work nicely on a 486. Of course, this is IMHO (I've not done it with a 486 - but I'd love to know how you get on) and YMMV. Hey, if it doesn't work, you've not lost anything apart from time, but you will probably have had some fun... :) -- James Ogley, Unix Systems Administrator, Pinnacle Insurance Plc james.ogley@pinnacle.co.uk www.pinnacle.co.uk +44 (0) 20 8731 3619 Using Free Software since 1994, running GNU/Linux (SuSE 8.0) Updated GNOME RPMs for SuSE Linux: www.usr-local-bin.org ********************************************************************** CONFIDENTIALITY.This e-mail and any attachments are confidential and may also be privileged. If you are not the named recipient, please notify the sender immediately and do not disclose the contents to another person, use it for any purpose, or store or copy the information in any medium. Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Pinnacle Insurance plc. If you have received this email in error please immediately notify the Pinnacle Helpdesk on +44 (0) 20 8207 9555. This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses. www.mimesweeper.com **********************************************************************