Pentium II SMP but no PAE. Will AntiX work?

[BillBraskey]

I have a funky old dual Pentium II server that I want to make work, just because. The PII does not support PAE, of course. As far as I can tell, linux kernels that support SMP also require PAE. I had never heard on AntiX until today, but someone suggested that it might be the magic distro that I need for such old hardware.

Other than the old architecture, it's actually a fairly capable system board, with AGP, USB, audio, and 2GB ECC PC133 RAM. Oddly, no onboard NIC though.

Can anyone point me in the right direction?

[Richard]

http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

Yes, that is what it was made for. Boot live to try and Enjoy.
Well, maybe I didn't notice the II.
One of the older versions might work better on the PII.
I used it years ago on a PII.

Soon one of the more knowledgeable antiX persons will attend.

About antiX

antiX is a fast, lightweight and easy to install linux live CD distribution based on Debian Stable for Intel-AMD x86 compatible systems. antiX offers users the "antiX Magic" in an environment suitable for old and new computers. So don't throw away that old computer yet! The goal of antiX is to provide a light, but fully functional and flexible free operating system for both newcomers and experienced users of Linux. It should run on most computers, ranging from 256MB old PIII systems with pre-configured swap to the latest powerful boxes. 256MB RAM is recommended minimum for antiX. The installer needs minimum 2.7GB hard disk size. antiX can also be used as a fast-booting rescue cd.

[BillBraskey]

I screwed up. The Pentium II actually does have PAE, as it is based on the Pentium Pro die. I was looking at some other old machines while composing this thread, and I guess I shuffled the various CPUs and motherboards in my head.

Sorry for the false alarm. But I would love to hear some tips from anyone who has installed a recent version of AntiX on such old hardware. Newer releases of various OSes tend to deprecate support for old chipsets, drivers, etc.

[lucky9]

Welcome to the forum BillBraskey!

You can try MX-14.4 or MX-15 also. antiX should run pretty darn well on a dual processor system depending on speed of the processors. 2 GB of memory is plenty for either OS.

[jdmeaux1952]

The best way to try antiX is to download it and burn to a cd or use unetbootin to put it on a usb. Either way you will be using it as a LiveCD to test it on your system. If you like the way it works on your system, then you can install it onto your hard drive.

The purpose of antiX was to be able provide new life or revive an older computer system. http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

I have revived several older systems with Pentium II and newer cpus, and donated them to students who couldn't afford a computer. Many of my friends from elsewhere in the USA have installed a version of antiX onto their machine, either as a single system or as a dual boot. I haven't heard a complaint about the OS, although I have had to direct many to the forum for better answers than I can give.

[kmathern]

Welcome to the forum BillBraskey! :welcome:

You can try MX-14.4 or MX-15 also. antiX should run pretty darn well on a dual processor system depending on speed of the processors. 2 GB of memory is plenty for either OS.

I wonder, do MX-14/MX-15/antiX require a cpu with SSE support? (and how would you check for that?)

I don't think the Pentium II included SSE support, it looks like it first appeared with the Pentium III (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentium_III).

I dug up an old post from back when Mepis 11 was in beta testing, and the poster couldn't get it to work on a machine with a AMD Athlon 1000 cpu which also lacked SSE support. It would give an error about no SSE support during startup: http://forum.mepiscommunity.org/viewtop ... 50#p258650.

[BillBraskey]

The PII does not have SSE, that's for sure. But that thread seems to revolve around video drivers demanding SSE, and the person posted at the end that a later relase worked for him. I will only need 2D, basic VGA from a PCI video card, and I have many to choose from (Matrox, Diamond, ATI). Or I could go headless.

[dolphin_oracle]

I can't tell you about xfce and MX, but there are folks running antiX-main (at least as of 13.2) on pentium II machines. Don't expect miracles. and flash will likely not work. Good thing antiX ships with streamlight for youtube videos.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2M5B5aXBDwk