[Mageia-dev] i686 must be Pentium II ?

[Giuseppe Ghibò]

R James wrote:
> [...]
> I did make a few post-installation tweaks:
>
> 1. Remove msec.
> 2. Disable PulseAudio.
> 3. Delete /etc/X11/xinit.d/70net_applet
>    (net_applet is a pig and not needed for static wired connection)
>
> Google Chromium is finally a browser that can handle gmail on
> low-resource systems.  Of course, it won't be playing YouTube
> videos but for basic email and web-surfing, this system is usable.
>
> Here are some interesting outputs:
>
> "free" right after logging into IceWM: (27MB RAM, no swap)
>   
some of resources are not taken only by the window manager but also by 
the toolkits and themes, which increase the memory usage.
Add a mail client (other than a browser looking at gmail or alpine via 
imap) and you are puzzled...; but you have just described what is 
considered the ideal client of the cloud os. Just a browser, nothing 
more because you have everything you need (sort of). Some user might 
have noticed the bouncing between these two kind of models: a mainframe 
which becomes a PC (so program and data stored locally) a PC which 
becomes again a mainframe (where applications and data are stored remotely).

Such kind of a system, indeed more optimized/tweaked and lighter is also 
included in some ASUS Deluxe motherboard FlashROM with the name of 
ExpressGate/SplashTOP (includes firefox, a chat client, skype and 
something for handling photos).

> [...]
>
> On the front-panel of this system, there is the old LED which says
> "233" with the "Turbo" button enabled and "133" with it disabled.
> That could make an interesting photo for proving that Mandriva
> and soon Mageia *can* run on legacy hardware.
>
> Not sure if this was helpful but perhaps its a good data point?
>   
A 233 is probably possible to be emulated on a core i7 using qemu 
without any virtualization (kqemu, etc.), to look how it appear. Your 
consideration about the network tools, etc.  were also true: most of the 
development were made for building a more confortable system for the 
average user but at the same time become unconfortable and more resource 
hungry for expert users which spent maybe some more time to learn how to 
do a manual configuration.

Bye
Giuseppe.