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The "Not Quite Amiga but still computer related category" => Alternative Operating Systems => Topic started by: mingle on November 30, 2008, 12:48:19 AM

Title: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: mingle on November 30, 2008, 12:48:19 AM
Hi,

I've seen mention of 68k Linux being able to be run on an A1200...

Obviously it won't be a proper Ubuntu-like desktop, since I think the distro is around 9 years old now!

But, is it a relatively easy thing to do and what would I have at the end of it - a working X-Windows environment, Shell only, etc?

Has anyone else done it and is it worth a tinker?

Cheers,

Mike.
Title: Re: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: Amithony on November 30, 2008, 01:00:53 AM
If you can get it working, I'd give it a go. Worse case scenario, you can reinstall Amiga OS. And you can join the Amiga folding team. :)
Title: Re: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: Piru on November 30, 2008, 01:24:11 AM
Assuming you have 68k with MMU and enough memory you're set (well true there is uClinux which works without MMU but I doubt it'd be very useful here).

It will be very slow, but you should be able to run X. Do note that most distros have dropped the official 68k support, so you might need to either use very old distribution or do fair bit of hacking yourself.

Is it worth it? IMO no. You'll be much happier with a x86 box running it. Even older x86 machine will be ok.
Title: Re: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: alexh on November 30, 2008, 01:30:05 AM
You'll need more than 2Mbytes of RAM and of course you'll need an accelerator
Title: Re: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: persia on November 30, 2008, 02:27:11 AM
Yeah, really a waste of a good A1200.  Get a discarded x86 machine and put Puppy Linux on it.  You'll be much happier having the A1200 running AmigaDOs...
Title: Re: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: mingle on November 30, 2008, 02:34:45 AM
@alexh

Regarding the accelerator - I'm working on it! :-)

@persia,

Don't worry, I'm not planning on using an A1200 as a dedicated Linux box! Just really seeing what it's like and how well (or otherwise) it runs.

Cheers,

Mike.
Title: Re: Linux on an A1200 - worth a go, or a waste of time?
Post by: recidivist on December 12, 2008, 01:16:02 AM
If it's just the challenge of the thing,go for it!

 But personally,I find multiple OSes on a computer are almost more trouble than they're worth;old computers can be gotten so cheaply it's no big deal to have dedicated machines.
Plus the latest linux wants a x86 family dual core !
x86 at 500mhz running Knoppix,slax,ubuntu, Mandriva,Fedora,or SuSE are so much more useful!
Best use the Amiga as an Amiga  :-)