poly-p-ux. a distro for retired computers

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Hi, I'm poly-p man. My email address is polypolyman@ibiblio.org You may remember me from such online communities as USEnet (comp.os.linux.*, especially), the gentoo forums, and various mailing lists (probably as pyrophobicman@gmail.com - that email still works, use it if you'd like.). I've loved linux for a while.

But enough about me. What is poly-p-ux? Well, just take a look at the image on the main page. (sorry, lynx users :D ). Say you have a VERRY old computer (386, 486, or Pentium, ideally.). Think of it as a snail. It can't do much. In fact, you probably have Windows 3.1 on it right now. Admit it. Well, poly-p-ux is a Linux distribution that's your own little rocket. While I make no guarantees about making your computer faster, it'll definitely make your system more useful.

Why/how/etc. make poly-p-ux?

Well, if you read some of my posts on the Gentoo Forums, you'll see that I'm a bit of a lover of old computers. I have an old IBM PC/XT in the closet that I pull out occasionally, I've played a bit with a commodore VIC-20, I've done a little work with a sinclair zx80, I've had more than my share of 486's and so, etc. Well, I have a computer (currently my main test computer) made by Compaq (Long before they became part of HP), it's a Presario 425. It originally came with a 486 SX/25mhz processor. I updated that to a 486 DX2 66mhz (hell yeah, that's fast!). What's my point? Well, I wanted Linux on that box a while ago. I finally decided on Slackware (11.0 at the time), which was nice, but it was a tad bigger and such than I would like. It's built for new hardware (like the Pentium II ). After that, I decided to try to install RedHat 3.0.3 . It's a great distro, but unfortunately, while it was ahead of its time, it's far behind now time. It's missing stuff like ssh and dhcp.

So, long story short, I needed a distro for my 486. Nothing was perfect. I decided to make my own.

And you know what? It wasn't that hard. Thanks to buildroot (the automatic toolchain-maker of the uclibc/busybox people), I make some initial configs, tell it to build, then I sit back and wait. At that point, I fix up the resulting filesystem until it fits the needs of a distro, and package it. The hardest part thus far (and almost definitely in the future as well) has been package management and packages. That's why I have only 4 packages right now.

But, you may say, why not just keep this for yourself and not release it? It certainly would be quite a bit easier. Well, that's where you're wrong. It may initially appear easier to make a system for myself and no one else, but if I release it, not only do I get the warm, fuzzy feeling of helping at least one person reclaim their old computer from dis-use, I could possibly get helpers, you know - people to do some of the work for me :D .

So, how do I get it?

First off, you'll need to go to the top of this page, and READ THE DOCUMENTATION FIRST!!!!!!. Then, download what you need and FOLLOW THE DIRECTIONS!!!! That's how.

How do I help?

Well, in its current state, it's really hard to give you something to do. The biggest thing you could do is test. Also, I need some floppy-based installers and I could definitely use some help building packages. However, rather than just randomly starting to do something, send me an email, and I'll give you work (you can request to do a particular thing if you'd like). I would immensely appreciate it; you would officially be my hero.

I love it...

Good! Send me an email explaining how you use it, etc, if you please.

I hate it/My computer exploded/My cat is singing badly/etc.

Too bad. Even if it is my fault, I accept no blame. Sorry!

I'd really love to donate to you.

At the moment, I don't take monetary contributions. The best thing to do would be to donate to the absolutely wonderful people at ibiblio. They are the whole reason that this distribution can be on the web and reaching you right now. Also, I could really use some test boxes. If you have any {3,4,5}86's, I would totally appreciate them. Email me if you have such a box and would like to give it to me.

And of course, all names and such that have copyrights/trademarks/whatever associated with them yada yada yada. The logo up there is my own work, and thus is copyright me. I'm lenient with how it's used - go ahead and use it. Make sure credit is given to me and contact me about its use. The bgcolor is "ibiblio blue", or #99CCFF. Thank you soooo much, ibiblio for hosting this. You guys truly are my heros.