       _      __            __                  _ 
      (_)__  / /_________  / /________  _______(_)
     / / _ \/ __/ ___/ _ \/ __/ ___/ / / / ___/ / 
    / /  __/ /_(__  )  __/ /_/ /  / /_/ / /  / /  
 __/ /\___/\__/____/\___/\__/_/   \__,_/_/  /_/   
/___/

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Slackware Linux 7.0 (1999)

A screenshot of the LILO boot loader.

A screenshot of the filesystem checking for errors because I shut it down improperly. Oops!

The login and the command I use to start KDE, that is startx.

The KDE desktop. Shown is a menu of applications, C source code that prints "Hello, Cohost!", and a terminal to compile and run the source code.

(Originally posted to Cohost on Sun, Jan 21, 2024, 11:01 PM)

Slackware Linux 7.0 (1999) running on a virtual i486DX2 @ 66MHz under 86Box.

This is part of a strange project I've had in my mind for years: what if I was repping a 486 by 1999-2004? What OS would I use? I don't think this hardware is 100% period-accurate, but it helps me sleep at night.

This took a lot longer to set up than I hoped. Here's some notes to reproduce my setup.

Computer notes:

Machine: Shuttle HOT-433A, under machine type "i486 (Socket 3)"
CPU: Intel i486DX2 at 66MHz with Dynamic Recompiler enabled
RAM: 32MB
Display: [PCI] S3 ViRGE/DX (375)
Mouse: Microsoft Serial Mouse
Sound card: [ISA16] Sound Blaster 16 PnP
HD and FD controllers: Internal controller
Hard disk: 4GB, [1996] 5400 RPM, ID of 0:0
Floppy drives: 3.5" 1.44MBs
CD-ROM drive: ATAPI (0:1) 86BOX CD-ROM 1.00 at 8x

Installation notes:

The CD I used can be found here. Since I've had trouble booting from floppy, I've used the Plop Boot Manager and booted to the Slackware CD that way.
A period-accurate installation guide can be found here.
I entered fdisk, typed w then return to create a new partition table. I switched to cfdisk to create two partitions, the first being a 32MB swap partition and the second being a partition that fills the rest of the system. I restart the system, enter the installer again, and type setup.
The installer's mostly straightforward. The only deviation I remember making was installing the OS on the MBR, which I think was the only way I got it to boot.
Post-install, I created a user via adduser, and ran /usr/X11R6/bin/XF86Setup as root to set up the desktop. "Card" is set to S3 ViRGE/DX, and to be safe I set the monitor to Standard VGA and the mode to 640x480 at 16-bit color depth. Still exploring.