Arch Linux

skale

Member

From: Atlanta, GA

Registered: 2006-08-04

Posts: 146

Arch on i586

I recently got (picked up off the side of the road) a "Quantex" (never heard of them) Pentium 1 box of junk.  I want to do something with it.  I thought, why not arch it?  I suppose I could use it for a print/net/share thingy.  Anyway:

1.  First of all, the guy who had the computer seemed to have dissassembled it, and then thrown all the parts back in and covered it.  Now I put most of it together, but still some parts are odd.  For example, the power supply.  I can't find where the power supply hooks up to the board.

2.  The case has a turbo button.  What in the blazes is that?

3.  There is no hard drive.  The spare drive that I do have is a notebook drive, and obviously does not fit into the slot (via the ribbon thingy).  Is there an adapter I can buy cheap to get it to work?  Or if not, what hard drive should I look for?

4.  Would a relatively recet (or any, for that matter) ethernet card work on the motherboard.  Looking at the motherboard, I already see it has some wierd mighty-size sockets for the PCi boards,  I don't even know if it is called PCI.  What is it?  It looks similar, but the pins are much larger.  It came with a telephone card and some card with a parallel port. 

5.  What kind of speeds would I expect to see?  I don't plan to use X, or anything demanding on the computer, just some network and printer modules, and some basic console work.

6.  Could I get a USB card for this thing?  Given the archaic slots?

7.  Should I just trash it?  The Salvation Army wouldn't even take it.

that's about it.  I spent a good half-hour lugging this thing to my house and looking at it, and would like for that time to have not gone to waste.  Thanks.

karsten

Member

Registered: 2006-07-14

Posts: 261

Re: Arch on i586

2.  The case has a turbo button.  What in the blazes is that?

for the 486s

the slots are most likely ISA.  dont think theres an ISA to USB card

bones

Member

From: Brisbane

Registered: 2006-03-24

Posts: 322

Website

Re: Arch on i586

The case has a turbo button. What in the blazes is that?

OH GOD! I suddenly feel old, My tip would be to buy a small boat and use it for an anchor    Probably make a good little toy to just play with some old time games.

---

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return."

tomk

Forum Fellow

From: Ireland

Registered: 2004-07-21

Posts: 9,839

Re: Arch on i586

You can get adapters for laptop HDs to connect them to regular IDE cables, and as mentioned, you'll need an ISA ethernet card - that is, if you're sure it doesn't have PCI slots. Any Pentium boxes I've used always had a mix of PCI and ISA. If it has to be ISA, the 3Com 3C515-TX is good - I still use one myself in a P200 box.

You haven't given any specs, so it's hard to guess the kind of performance you might get out of it. My P200 runs fine with IPCop (firewall/router distro) and I used to run a P166 with no problems as a Debian-based DIY DSL modem.

If you ever get to the stage where you're ready to install something, you'll need Lowarch - regular Arch is only for i686 and upwards.

skale

Member

From: Atlanta, GA

Registered: 2006-08-04

Posts: 146

Re: Arch on i586

Thanks.

I am having trouble with a uSB ISA port, I do, however see one PCI port.  I am going to see if I can find a USB PCI port for it.  Will it work with the motherboard?  I could not find anything conclusive on that. 

I looked at the lowarch site, and am going to try it out, after I resolder the cut wires and reassemble everything (The computer reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where Jerry's mechanic runs away with the Saab and the police find one where the car was killed serial-killer style. 

"Oh yes, he took his time on this one. Yep, he enjoyed it."
Something like that.

Thanks for the help.

kth5

Member

Registered: 2004-04-29

Posts: 657

Website

Re: Arch on i586

You also might find these repos useful:

ftp://ftp.archlinuxppc.org/i586

---

I recognize that while theory and practice are, in theory, the same, they are, in practice, different. -Mark Mitchell

rayjgu3

Member

From: Chicago IL usa

Registered: 2004-07-04

Posts: 695

Re: Arch on i586

1st off it would be much easier to know what motherboard your dealing with & bios version
to identify check this out post info
it would make it much easier to help you. as for older pc parts i still have some old ISA cards
i have  video, sound , modem<several<   no ethernet though
at case W/ powersupply
a few processors  mostly socket7 166 ,233  i even have 1 533 
pm me if your interested

edit: ok the pm is gone now so email me

Last edited by rayjgu3 (2007-01-27 13:11:44)