[ale] open source solutions for Win 98 on an old laptop

[Daniel Howard]

Amazingly enough, I found an old Ambicom PCMCIA 10BaseT ethernet card in 
my basement last nite that I had for an old Sharp handheld PC (that will 
be an entire weekend worth of Linux dabbling I'm sure), and the Win98 
drivers were still available on the web and it works just fine.

Actually, with this thing working now, I'm tempted to make a study of it 
before I wipe Win98 off of it: how long, even with Avast running on it 
and using Opera as the browser, before it gets a virus or seriously 
hacked?  Any suggestions for how to do such a study?  Would make a great 
post to Slashdot: "Even with modern virus protection, Win98 PCs get 
infected/cracked in X minutes." There was a recent post to Slashdot that 
said that the average time an unpatched Windows PC took to get a virus 
was 17 minutes, shorter than the time to download all the patches and 
install them.

Daniel

Jim Kinney wrote:
> Good ol' slackware still has the ability to boot and install from a 
> floppy drive. Get version latest and make a floppy set following the 
> instructions in the README in the rootdisks directory of the DVD. You 
> can install as much or as little as you like. An external USB CD may be 
> a good choice for full install from a boot floppy.
> 
> A tiny kernel image with networking and a NFS mounted / from a server 
> would make that feeble thing a thin client but you'll need a pccard NIC.
> 
> In all honesty, the laptop should be sold on Ebay for parts. You might 
> be able to get a working NIC using the USB socket but given the age, the 
> battery is probably nearly useless.
> 
> Hmm. Found this: http://www.pcdoc.bz/service/toshiba_notebook_drivers.htm
> The $20 CD is about what the laptop will bring on ebay...
> 
> On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 9:42 AM, Daniel Howard <dhhoward at comcast.net 
> <mailto:dhhoward at comcast.net>> wrote:
> 
>     Geoffrey wrote:
>      >> With 80 MB RAM and only 1 GB HDD, any other suggestions of Linux
>      >> versions to try on it?
>      >
>      > Slack.  Slackware has never failed me when loading it on low end
>     hardware.
> 
>     What browser/word processor/spreadsheet would be used in Slackware?
>     Given no CDROM and no bootable USB support, can I start the Slackware
>     install from a floppy?
> 
>      > Security wise, you're screwed with win98, it's no longer supported by
>      > Microsoft (July 2006).  I would expect that if you stick that
>     puppy on
>      > the internet, it will get infected and/or cracked.
>      >
> 
>     Yah, I put Avast and Opera on it and it does browse the web just fine,
>     but I'm sure it's only a matter of time...
> 
>     --
>     Daniel Howard
>     President and CEO
>     Georgia Open Source Education Foundation
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>     Ale at ale.org <mailto:Ale at ale.org>
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> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> -- 
> James P. Kinney III

-- 
Daniel Howard
President and CEO
Georgia Open Source Education Foundation