[luau] Greetings

[Warren Togami]

cpaul at telemetrybox.org wrote:
> I will have to respectfully disagree with your advice Warren :)  This
> is a fine laptop for X-Windows.  The 486DX was a BLAZING fast CPU
> back in the day!  486's are, to this day, being used as GUI
> workstations.
> 
> Linux + X-Windows will run fine on a 486 laptop like this.  There are
> a several caveats though - The first is RAM, this laptop should be
> upgraded to 32mb (or 64mb if possible) - X will run on 8mb, but it
> will not be very responsive.  The second issue to be aware of is that
> the older Toshiba laptops require special installation disks.
> 

It is true that it is possible to run X on 486's when you have enough 
RAM, but modern applications that people expect like web browsers and 
office applications are unusable.  The slowest machine I used in the 
last 3 years was Pentium 133MHz with 128MB RAM.  It loaded Red Hat 7.1 
fine, but web browsing and OpenOffice was excruciatingly slow.  Now it 
is one of the thin clients at Mid-Pac.

All of the web browser plugins that I can think of will run only on 586 
or better, this includes Flash Plugin, Java, and Real Player for Linux.

If you avoid those modern applications and use more traditional Unix 
apps then yes, it can be usable.

Warren Togami
warren at togami.com