Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

filoktetes · 2006-11-20 13:31:33

The floppy installer is nearly finished. I hope to release it in a few days. I've had some trouble, since I only have usb floppy for my laptop. Lilo didn't get that at all, but grub works fine. I've looked into going over to initramfs or using initcpio, but I think it will have to wait until the next release. I've also struggled with getting the pcmcia floppy on the i486 laptop I found, but it is difficult. I'll leave it, and just make a floppy installer that works on normal systems.
I'm also wondering if anyone has tried the ftp install, since I have no way to test it myself, there'll probably be something wrong with it.

And skottish:
Thanks a lot for the link

multitronic · 2006-11-20 21:58:16

I am posting this from my K6-2/300, running lowarch and kde

To compile kde I copied a abs tree from the normal arch to lowarch and compiled all needed modules. I don't have the whole kde, just kdelibs, kdebase and kdegraphics.
Kde actually does not need more memory than xfce (but cpu usage is higher). Gkrellm shows a memory usage of 24MB for a empty kde desktop, 28MB with konqueror and 32MB with konqueror and the archlinux homepage shown.
For webrowsing this is less than xfce + firefox.

So far I am very satisfied with lowarch

filoktetes · 2006-11-20 22:37:39

Congratualtions !! I'm very happy to hear this
Please tell me if something wrong happens. You could also try to upgrade. I've just upgraded about 53 packages, e.g firefox 2.
And, yes, the reason I don't include Gnome and KDE isn't that they're too big for i586s, it's more that I need to limit the amount of work I must do to maintain it, and that I expect that most people will choose to run other WMs, or Xfce4.

cr7 · 2006-11-28 13:24:30

I'm very interested. I'd like to help you.
I can compile packages or do something else, if you want.

filoktetes · 2006-11-28 13:56:04

That's great cr7
Right now compilation isn't really the most important job. We now need to test what we have, and see what needs to be adjusted.
Here are things you could do:

1. Install Lowarch on a i486 or i586 computer. Tell me exactly what computer you are using, and tell me about any problems with installation. Also, try out as many programs as possible and tell me how they work on your system, if they are too slow or have other problems.

2. If you don't have a i486 or i586 computer, test it on a i686 computer, and tell me about problems. Give me suggrestions for how things can be better. (Don't tell me you would like gnome or kde and an really fancy video editiong program, since, for now, the focus is on Low end systems.)

3. After doing 1. or 2. think about the package selection, and come with suggestions about packages that are probably useless on old systems, and about programs you think really should be included. This is the part I'm most concerned about at the moment. When the next iso is released, I think the biggest difference will be the package selection.

4. If you know a lot about the kernel and other essential systems in Linux, please come with suggestions or solutions for how to make Lowarch need even less resources.

Later, when the package selection is more solidified and most of the important tasks has been accomplished, focus will change more to keeping the packages up to date. Then I would be very glad to have people who could maintain some of the packages.

I hope this is enough to get you started
I look forward to get your feedback.

By the way, right now the lowarch.linuxophic.org site doesn't work. I'm in the process of changing the url to www.lowarch.org and for some reason the isp deleted the subdomain that I've used untill now.
You can still find the site here: http://www.linuxophic.org/lowarch

cr7 · 2006-11-28 14:27:50

Yes, I have a i586 laptop, a Pentium MMX 166 Mhz with 32mb of RAM.
I am downloading Lowarch just now, and I'll try it right today, I hope.

Certainly, I can test all and give you my feedback, and also suggest some package, I tried many distros for old systems, so I know a lot of applications which can be lightweight and useful on this kind of computer.

If you know a lot about the kernel and other essential systems in Linux, please come with suggestions or solutions for how to make Lowarch need even less resources.

Uhm... I can give you a little help here, at least a suggestion.
You can try to compile the distro and the packages with uClibc instead of glibc, it's the main trick of distros like Damn Small Linux or DeLi Linux.

Then I would be very glad to have people who could maintain some of the packages.

Yes, I can help you on this

Ah, sorry for my english, but it isn't my first language

filoktetes · 2006-11-28 14:57:17

I see you are new in the forum, so I should warn you if you haven't installed Arch Linux before: After installation you'll end up with a console window, and you have to set up most things yourself. No menus or guis. You probably know this, but some other people became very surprised, so I've decided to warn people just in case
The Arch Linux wiki is a great place to start. Most things there will work for Lowarch as well.

Your English look very good to me, although my first language isn't English either..

cr7 · 2006-11-28 15:15:09

I know Arch Linux well enough, I use it on my i686 pc since some months

No problem with the shell

Maybe, the repository too is down with your site. Can I find it somewhere else? :?:

filoktetes · 2006-11-28 18:47:19

Is the site still down for you? I hope not. It works here. And the repository (lowarch.linuxophic.org/current/os/i486) should be working as well.

cr7 · 2006-11-28 19:54:45

Now all works well

freex · 2006-12-04 22:46:57

installed lowarch on k6-2/500 with nvidia-legacy driver (missed in ur repo) and it works great! package building with -Os -march=i486 -mtune=i686 should boost performance on i586/686 systems. keep up tha great work...

filoktetes · 2006-12-05 02:14:24

Thanks
I decided not to put the closed video drivers in the repo, because I really hate closed hardware. But I'm thinking of makeing an unfree repo, not included on the cd, where I'll move java (for now), flash and probably the nvidia and ati drivers.

Arch Linux

#26 2006-11-20 13:31:33

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#27 2006-11-20 21:58:16

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#28 2006-11-20 22:37:39

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#29 2006-11-28 13:24:30

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#30 2006-11-28 13:56:04

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#31 2006-11-28 14:27:50

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#32 2006-11-28 14:57:17

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#33 2006-11-28 15:15:09

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#34 2006-11-28 18:47:19

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#35 2006-11-28 19:54:45

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#36 2006-12-04 22:46:57

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

#37 2006-12-05 02:14:24

Re: Lowarch 0.1.0 (Duhsala) released

Board footer