Skip to main content
We’ve updated our Terms of Service. A new AI Addendum clarifies how Stack Overflow utilizes AI interactions.
Retrocomputing

Questions tagged [linux]

Ask Question

For questions regarding the operation of the Linux operating system on retrocomputers.

42 questions
Newest Active Bountied Unanswered
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
5 votes
2 answers
698 views

Linux 5.10 (Devuan 4) on a Slot 1 Celeron Mendocino was hanging at boot with Kernel panic - not syncing: Attempted to kill the idle task!. The boot log (directed to the serial port so it didn't ...
Neil Stockbridge's user avatar
  • 227
0 votes
3 answers
1k views

This was asked by @ilkkachu in comments, but I've always wondered about it myself. Unix, Posix, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Linux, Minix, Ultrix, Xenix... not to mention Active-X and Xbox. I know it all began ...
Miss Understands's user avatar
  • 4,339
18 votes
7 answers
6k views

I've recently been working out how best to wire up a serial cable for a vintage plotter, and it's thrown me down the rabbit hole of RS-232. As far as I can tell, many RS-232 devices which act as DTEs (...
Peter Russell's user avatar
  • 423
10 votes
5 answers
3k views

I have a 386 with 4GB drive (7769/16/63). It's a Compaq from 1992 so it does not have any translation options in BIOS. DOS is installed on the first 1023 cylinders (essentially the maximum size it can ...
eesz34's user avatar
  • 965
0 votes
0 answers
315 views

What was the right name of a software platform for some Linux BBSs in the year 1992? "Galactico" if I remember well...
Dimitris P. Kalousis's user avatar
  • 9
2 votes
0 answers
278 views

I'm looking for a game which I remember playing at an arcade, probably around 1995-2000. I also think I played it (or a very similar game) on PC under Linux ~5 years ago. It's your typical platform/...
Baard Kopperud's user avatar
  • 449
15 votes
1 answer
1k views

There is an interesting discussion about the early days of Linux at https://www.abortretry.fail/p/the-path-to-linux that includes some of the exchanges between Torvalds and Tanenbaum. One that caught ...
rwallace's user avatar
  • 65.3k
6 votes
1 answer
342 views

RPM, or RedHat Package Manager, was developed by RedHat for their flavors of Linux, though it is now used also in SUSE flavors. What was the package system in SUSE predating the adoption of RPM, and ...
brainchild's user avatar
  • 165
2 votes
0 answers
116 views

Hi I have a problem with Agetty, I have an old minitel 1200/75 baud terminal, I have tried different configurations to connect with a 56k modem in v23 bell mode, the server closes the connection maybe ...
Francesco's user avatar
  • 21
6 votes
1 answer
938 views

I have a Strikelink WiFi modem for the C64 (see here and here) and I can connect to a BBS without issues using CCGMS 2017 v4 and the following settings: Baud = 9600 Modem Type = UP9600 / EZ232 For ...
Pitto's user avatar
  • 243
1 vote
1 answer
246 views

I want to be able to connect from my Commodore 64 to a Linux Raspberry Pi. The ideal solution would be something like ssh that allows me to use the linux machine using the c64 as a terminal but the ...
Pitto's user avatar
  • 243
1 vote
0 answers
487 views

I have an older computer and want to install Linux on it. I want to do this on a CF card. I have tried many things, but get a WRITE ERROR. I get the write error when I try to install Linux ubuntu-16....
user22722's user avatar
  • 19
1 vote
0 answers
182 views

I am trying to add some system interface made by myself to Linux-0.11 and using bochs to debug the interface.But I have found two strange things. Here is my code. #include <asm/segment.h> char ...
TherLF's user avatar
  • 11
5 votes
2 answers
1k views

With a new purchase coming in shortly I wanted to ask what do I need to be able to SSH to a remote host from an Amiga: Make modem work and connect to my network: https://www.ebay.com/itm/KCWIFI-PRO-...
Bartek Malysz's user avatar
  • 4,262
1 vote
1 answer
559 views

I have enjoyed Linux for about two years now, but I laugh at how hard I failed when I first started my Linux journey. I would try and enter a password and then nothing would happen. I first thought ...
Neil Meyer's user avatar
  • 7,255
10 votes
6 answers
8k views

I am considering taking my nostalgia for the eighties to the next level and getting hold of a green monochrome monitor. In particular, the nine inch monitor of the Apple IIc, but maybe something else ...
cardamom's user avatar
  • 321
13 votes
3 answers
3k views

After trying out FS-UAE on my Fedora Linux system, which worked quite nicely, I got to thinking. Even though when the Amiga was originally released in the middle 1980s, it was revolutionary in its ...
user53739's user avatar
  • 193
0 votes
1 answer
258 views

I lately wanted to try some of the Commodore 64 games I have kept as D64 files on my Fedora Linux system using VICE. I have lately upgraded the system from Fedora 26 to Fedora 32. After I started up ...
user53739's user avatar
  • 193
19 votes
2 answers
2k views

If there is some piece of PC compatible hardware where there are no (publicly) existing drivers for Linux, the only option is to access the disk with BIOS calls. I'm aware that this imposes ...
PoC's user avatar
  • 1,302
2 votes
3 answers
393 views

Now I understand that Microsoft has a competing technology in the web server field with the Internet Information Services, so not every last web server is done with Linux, but how did Linux web ...
Neil Meyer's user avatar
  • 7,255
4 votes
2 answers
849 views

I.e. how can I run xroach on a VM? A search on RC for xroach didn't turn anything up. xroach, as I remember it, ran under old versions of X and had a certain number of cockroaches on the root window ...
Christos Hayward's user avatar
  • 143
1 vote
0 answers
293 views

So appearently there's a Red Hat Linux Enterprise 5.1 and I'd just like to make it clear that I'm not trying to install that. I'm trying to install the original Red Hat Linux 5.1 from 1998 in a ...
ioi-xd's user avatar
  • 209
-3 votes
2 answers
713 views

I've recently commenced revitalizing an HP Pavilion Slim. She's running an Intel Pentium, x86_64. I thought I'd give Gentoo a go because I've found it very appealing and as a Bedrock user I wanted to ...
Bobbbay's user avatar
  • 95
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

The way I understand Linux history, in the early 2000s, Linux introduced the DRI/DRM mechanism and framebuffers, so userland can write to the graphics card directly. Before that, "console" linux was ...
retro's user avatar
  • 119
24 votes
2 answers
1k views

ARM Linux, at least Debian was traditionally (pre eabi) built for the FPA floating point unit*. Unfortunately under old ABI it was not easily possible to mix soft-float code with FPA code. The result ...
Peter Green's user avatar
  • 3,747
5 votes
1 answer
332 views

I like to play with old networks, uucp is really and advanced(is from the 1978) for that time. I have setup a uucp server in a tru64 unix server. On tru64 server I have edit /etc/inetd.conf uucp ...
elbarna's user avatar
  • 3,497
1 vote
1 answer
1k views

I desire to know what was the very first Linux-kernel based operating system, what we can call today a "distribution" even if the term wasn't used then. The Wiki article doesn't give a clear answer, ...
user avatar
22 votes
2 answers
5k views

In this video, Richard Stallman claimed that Linus Torvalds created Linux kernel as a proprietary software and then liberated it ('liberated' is the term Stallman used). Assuming so, when was the ...
user avatar
0 votes
3 answers
1k views

As I know, shortly after Linus Torvalds liberated the Linux kernel it was implemented in GNU operating system which is since then known as GNU/Linux or GNU+Linux. From the GNU article in Wikipedia I ...
user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
7k views

Does the first version of Linux developed by Linus Torvalds have a GUI (not necessarily Iconic but something simpler like Midnight Commander)?
user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
436 views

I have an old Lexmark 1100 printer (parallel port LPT1) that is currently working fine on Windows 98. I've tried to make it work on several current distros of Linux but, so far, none worked. Basically,...
Mark Messa's user avatar
  • 129
3 votes
2 answers
743 views

Recently, I've been very interested in old-school bulletin board systems (BBS) from the 90s. I'm interested in building my own (mostly as just a fun challenge), but to be honest, I'm not totally sure ...
pinecat's user avatar
  • 31
22 votes
3 answers
5k views

Nowadays there is quite some debate and controversy over whether Linux distributions should use systemd, GNU Shepherd etc. But all these systems are relatively new - for these examples dating back to ...
Kidburla's user avatar
  • 465
3 votes
1 answer
2k views

When attempting to install Debian Linux 2.0 Hamm (m68k build) on a machine with a m68k (Motorola 68000) processor, I get a Kernel image must be specified error. Why must a kernel be specified to boot ...
Retro Gamer's user avatar
  • 2,475
3 votes
2 answers
965 views

These days, of course, we have the Internet, but back in the day, there was Unix to Unix Copy - UUCP. In its heyday it was a terrific way to get email and other simple data moving across the world, ...
Jim MacKenzie's user avatar
  • 1,652
14 votes
5 answers
3k views

I'm able to use NASM to assemble simple COM files from my modern Linux computer, but how can I create a DOS EXE file while still in Linux? Specifically, I am interested in a solution that will target ...
Sydius's user avatar
  • 2,714
8 votes
2 answers
1k views

I'm looking at a rather old Linux (v2.4) that has custom device drivers built into the kernel. Now I wonder since when that was done. I suppose it most be an old technique, was this the way device ...
Niklas Rosencrantz's user avatar
  • 1,151
15 votes
4 answers
4k views

Based on my understanding, a tty means a computer terminal/teletype, and that /dev/ttyS1 is the driver for serial port 1/COM1 (or more accurately, a driver for UART chip 1 I suppose). But I don't ...
Steve's user avatar
  • 253
79 votes
8 answers
28k views

Unfortunately Debian kicked out Pentium 1 (i586) CPU support from its 32-bit PC port (named i386 for historic circumstances) for its next stable release Debian 9 Stretch. (Then again they complain ...
Axel Beckert's user avatar
  • 1,095
16 votes
4 answers
10k views

I have a couple of old Game Boy Advance SP systems around somewhere, and I was wondering if it's possible to get an old version of Linux running on one. I'm just doing it for fun, and thought that it ...
Jordan M. Baron's user avatar
  • 992
17 votes
4 answers
2k views

I have some Amigas that I would like to be able to transfer files to/from using my primary desktop machine, a PC running Linux. My Amigas do have CrossDOS installed, but transferring things in 720K ...
Laurence Gonsalves's user avatar
  • 431
52 votes
11 answers
14k views

A bit of a trivia question: What is the oldest hardware capable of running a modern Linux-based operating system, including user-space? (Not necessarily GNU userspace, but running a standard GNU/Linux ...
Jonas Czech's user avatar
  • 805