Linux from inside DOS: Have your cake and eat it, with BasicLinix on the Pocket 386
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
- You want to have a well-confined Linux installation in which to play around, but without doing harm to your default MS-DOS/Windows 3.11 or Windows 95 installation, e.g. on the "modern vintage" mini-laptop Pocket 386 (as on mine, shown here, ere it perished), and it must not be a dual boot? Then BasicLinux might be just what you have been looking for: a minimized Linux distribution that can be extended using Slackware 4 packages and that runs from loop file* and that can be started with a DOS command - bending the machine to its will, turning it into another Renfield to the Dracula that Linux truly is, until you reboot…
* For those looking for a UMSDOS guide - that comes in a future video, this is not it yet.
On a famous e-commerce site, I saw they sell: Retro Pocket 386 for nearly 270 euros; what a crap! But in that case, I'm happy I will never buy it.
Well, this channel tries to show experiments as technology-neutrally as possible, so I hope I will have also some ideas for you for your standard run-of-the-mill "old computer". ☺️ Welcome and enjoy!
Wow, excelent. Similar with DOSLINUX
blast from the past. I remember several linux distros with the option to boot from dos/w9x and I used to run PeanutLinux loop version this way.
So cool.
jjjjooooo bro
I'm sure you can compile a custom kernel and run the propper thing with a bootloader and stuff.
An older kernel - yes; but you know - a lot of the amenities these kernels offer are inapplicable… for instance: networking - "What networking?" 😆
Thanks for continuing to try out these new things. I wonder if an earlier version of Minix can be installed on this? I keep meaning to read the Tanenbaum book.
After initial doubt, due to you now Minix DID make it on the list - two Minix videos are made and are on the way (but systematically come after another 4-6 videos).
why not buy a $150..250 Chromebook,, you get a desktop browser with extensions
Android 13 && Linux ,, oh and 10 years of support
why struggle with an old machine?
For the same reasons why I often write with a quill, or why all men, including yourself, fancy of the Roman Empire (καὶ σύ, τέκνον)…
@@ninoivanov the sun shines, the sun shines,,, G translate ( early Ai Quill pen ) oh, using a $200 lenovo Duet 3 Chromebook " tablet " & stylus ( early IT Quill pen ) British empire ( what's left of it )
BasicLinux it’s called you say?
BasicLinux, on the ibiblio site linked in the comments. Good luck! 🫡
Too bad it did broke
You know… the experiments are continuing, just with another machine in the future… 😉
Sir, did I see a "startx" option there? 🙂
It does have X. But it is unuseably slow in a 486 DX2, so never even bothered here. 😆
I wonder if xfree 3.3.x can provide hw 2d acceleration on included (cirrus?) video hardware?
Nice work! How about ssh over a PPP connection using the serial port. Do you think it's possible?
Totally, and I have done it in the past. Just having "compatible" ssh with matching key algorithms will be a bit of a challenge. The question is, do you insist on SSH, or would e.g. telnet / netcat suffice…
@@ninoivanov Well SSH for security reasons, but I'll take telnet. My idea is to use one the WiFi ESP32 serial to PPP modules and wire it directly to the serial expansion card in my Pocket386. We would use TTL levels and connect RX, TX, CTS & RTS for hardware flow control. Hopefully run it at 115200bps. Then install an older version of RedHat, FreeBSD or maybe your BasicLinux solution will work. With this setup I could SSH to one of my more powerful Linux machines where ever I have WiFi access. Then I could do actual real work. That would be so cool!
@turbo9team Check out some of my videos in my playlist "TTY/SLIP/PPP“, in the medium future (next year) I will update it a lot with what you are trying to accomplish. Meanwhile, look for the DOS software CONEX, very easy to use. My playlist "Retrofuturism" also has a couple of videos in that direction. In brief: try to get CONEX on DOS to talk to picocom on your main Linux machine, and once you can "chat", it merely becomes a question of running a shell on the serial line which you can easily do even over "socat" on Linux.
@@ninoivanov Awesome I will check out your other tty,slip,ppp videos! Right now I use my Pocket386 as a terminal using Telix, a null modem cable and my linux machine providing a TTY console via agetty. Works OK, but a truly portable Pocket386 with WiFi and SSH is the dream ;-)
@@turbo9team Then you got the essentials already! I have nothing to offer, as you are but half an hour away from realizing your plan, but if you permit, this might really be it: ua-cam.com/video/1s342z776hA/v-deo.html