GRASS on Linux on SX

[Charles E Meier]

In article <9407041100.aa16483 at pollux.GEOG.UCSB.EDU> you write:
>In a posting about Linux/Grass, Gerald Evenden wrote:
>
>>Suggest 16 Mb ram for starters, significantly better performance with 32Mb,
>>300Mb hard-disk (Unix usually runs about 200Mb) but a more reasonable size
>>is 600Mb. 33MHz 486 is starting cpu but, if you can, look at DX2's 50Mhz or
>>66MHz. NO SX's. Also be sure the motherboard has a good reputation, Unix is
>        ^^^^^^^^
>>not tolerant of some of the cheaper clones. Obviously, 1024x780x8 video
>>required and the bigger the screen, the better, but I get by on a 15 incher.
>
>Does this mean Linux and/or GRASS won't work on SX machines, or just run
>very slowly/poorly?  I have a SX at home that I want to run GRASS and
>Linux on.  Speed doesn't matter at this time (when it does, I'll get a 
>new computer).
>
>chuck

I run grass under linux on a 386sx-25mhz w/ 9MB of ram, 16K cache, a slow 
Trident video card, a poor 14" monitor w/ .52 dot res. (640x480x8), and
2 ide HDs (1=340MB, 2=100MB).  I have a 387, but linux does have fp math 
emulation code that can be configured into the kernel in the absence of a
coprocessor.

The whole thing actually didn't seem too gawd-awful horribly painfully slow
until I was given an account on some Sun or other running Arc-Info so that 
I could finish off my PhD work.  Now I cringe every time I bring up grass on 
my home pc.  But then I used to cringe every time I brought up Word Perfect
on my old XT after I bought the 386sx.

An 80486sx should be fine, but invest in at least 8MB or more of RAM.

+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
*                 Charles E. Meier        <Meier.1 at osu.edu>                   *
*                                                                             *
*   - "You can learn a lot from listening to people talk.  Why everything I   *
*   know today I've learned from listening to myself talk about things that   *
*   I knew absolutely nothing about." - Gracie Allen                          *
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