CentOS 4 on PCem Pentium 75 - System Information

CentOS

CentOS was a freely available version of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which followed the upstream RHEL updates and removed any non-free IP from the packages.

Red Hat developed a commercial Linux in the form of Red Hat Linux (also known as Red Hat Commercial Linux), which developed a stable long term support distribution in the form of Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL), which includes components not covered by free licenses. To provide a community Linux which wasn't constrained by enterprise concerns, the Red Hat Linux line was replaced with Fedora Linux. Fedora Linux provides a Red Hat style distribution nearer the bleeding edge than RHEL and isn't encumbered by non-free licenses. This change meant that many users were faced with a decision... to switch to Fedora and cope with the more dynamic nature of the project, or pay for RHEL to get long term stability.

Since RHEL was based on opensource, a number of projects sprung up that took the free parts of RHEL, removed any branding or other encumbered property, and repackaged them into new distributions (see Red Hat Enterprise Linux derivatives - Wikipedia). CentOS was one of these projects and provided an RHEL compatible distribution that lagged a little bit behind RHEL release and updates, and was freely available. While CentOS has since been acquired by Red Hat, and its role (as CentOS Stream) has changed to being upstream of RHEL, we're going to be looking at a version from not long after Red Hat Linux was discontinued.

CentOS 4

RHEL 4 was released on 15-Feb-2005 and was based on Fedora Core 3 (8-Nov-2004). With the corresponding CentOS 4 being released a little later on 9-Mar-2005. Based on the Linux 2.6 kernel (see Introducing the 2.6 Kernel | Linux Journal), this was a jump from previous RHEL and CentOS releases which had used the Linux 2.4 kernel.

Older CentOS releases are available for download from: https://wiki.centos.org/Download.

RedHat Linux 7.3 (Valhalla) on PCem Pentium 75

RedHat Linux

Initially established back in 1994, Red Hat (Wikipedia) is a commercial Linux vendor known for the RedHat Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora Linux distributions.

RedHat Linux 7.3 (Valhalla) was released in 2002, and supported i386 through early Pentium 4 systems (the Intel Core based processors didn't ship until 2006). So it is suitable for comparing our physical Intel Pentium system (tilia) and the PCem emulated equivalent.

Earlier Releases

A couple of earlier Red Hat Linux releases are described on the same PCem system in:

• RedHat Linux 5.2 (Apollo) on PCem Pentium 75
• RedHat Linux 6.2 (Zoot) on PCem Pentium 75

It is interesting to see the evolution of the Red Hat Linux distribution over these releases.

PCem

The IBM PC and compatibles emulator PCem supports a range of PC system, from the original Intel 8088 based IBM PC through to a early 2000s slot 1 based Pentium II system. This includes a couple of systems featuring the Intel 430fx chipset which makes them equivalent to our physical system.

So the target emulated hardware is:

Mainboard	Intel Advanced/ZP (Zappa); Intel Triton 82430FX PCIset aka. 430FX
CPU	Intel Pentium 75
RAM	72 MiB (128 MiB max.)
Floppy	3.5" 2.88MB
Storage	IDE Controller Intel 82371FB aka. PIIX, ATA-2 16 MB/s
	IDE hard disk 2048 GB
	ATAPI CD-ROM drive
Video	S3 Trio64 based VGA
Network	10Mb/s ethernet ISA

Mandrake Linux 7.2 (Odyssey) on PCem Pentium 75

Mandrake Linux

Initially established back in 1998, MandrakeSoft (Wikipedia) was a commercial Linux vendor known for the Mandrake Linux distribution (Wikipedia), after a merger with the Brazilian Linux distribution Conectiva and a dispute over rights to the "Mandrake" name, the company and their Linux distribution changed name from Mandrake to Mandriva.

Mandrake Linux is notable for many improvements to desktop Linux distributions, including improvements to hardware detection and handing, and the use of a graphical installation process. Mandrake was also a pioneer in optimizing their Intel x86 distribution for Pentium or higher processors.

Mandrake Linux 7.2 was released in 2000, and so was a competitor with Red Hat Linux 6.2, and supported Pentium through early Pentium III systems (the Intel Pentium 4 didn't ship until November that year). So it is suitable for comparing our physical Intel Pentium system (tilia) and the PCem emulated equivalent.

PCem

The IBM PC and compatibles emulator PCem supports a range of PC systems, from the original Intel 8088 based IBM PC through to a early 2000s slot 1 based Pentium II system. This includes a couple of systems featuring the Intel 430fx chipset which makes them equivalent to our physical system.

Basing our desired system on tilia and the PCem devices, the target emulated hardware is:

Mainboard	Intel Advanced/ZP (Zappa); Intel Triton 82430FX PCIset aka. 430FX
CPU	Intel Pentium 75
RAM	72 MiB (128 MiB max.)
Floppy	3.5" 2.88MB
Storage	IDE Controller Intel 82371FB aka. PIIX, ATA-2 16 MB/s
	IDE hard disk 2048 GB
	ATAPI CD-ROM drive
Video	S3 Trio64 based VGA PCI
Network	10Mb/s ethernet ISA or 100Mb/s ethernet PCI

RedHat Linux 6.2 (Zoot) on PCem Pentium 75

RedHat Linux 6.2 on PCem

RedHat Linux

Initially established back in 1994, Red Hat (Wikipedia) is a commercial Linux vendor known for the RedHat Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) and Fedora Linux distributions.

RedHat Linux 6.2 was released in 2000, and supported i386 through early Pentium III systems (the Intel Pentium 4 didn't ship until November that year). So it is suitable for comparing our physical Intel Pentium system (tilia) and the PCem emulated equivalent.

PCem

The IBM PC and compatibles emulator PCem supports a range of PC systems, from the original Intel 8088 based IBM PC through to a early 2000s slot 1 based Pentium II system. This includes a couple of systems featuring the Intel 430fx chipset which makes them equivalent to our physical system.

Basing our desired system on tilia and the PCem devices, the target emulated hardware is:

Mainboard	Intel Advanced/ZP (Zappa); Intel Triton 82430FX PCIset aka. 430FX
CPU	Intel Pentium 75
RAM	72 MiB (128 MiB max.)
Floppy	3.5" 2.88MB
Storage	IDE Controller Intel 82371FB aka. PIIX, ATA-2 16 MB/s
	IDE hard disk 2048 GB
	ATAPI CD-ROM drive
Video	S3 Trio64 based VGA
Network	10Mb/s ethernet ISA

RedHat Linux 5.2 (Apollo) on PCem Pentium 75

RedHat Linux

Initially established back in 1994, Red Hat (Wikipedia) is a commercial Linux vendor known for the RedHat Linux, Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Fedora Linux distributions.

RedHat Linux 5.2 was released in 1998, and supported i386 through early Pentium II systems. So it is suitable for comparing our physical system (tilia) and the PCem emulated equivalent.

PCem

The IBM PC and compatibles emulator PCem supports a range of PC system, from the original Intel 8088 based IBM PC through to a early 2000s slot 1 based Pentium II system. Including a couple of systems featuring the Intel 430fx chipset, making them equivalent to our reference physical system.

The target hardware for emulation is:

Mainboard	Intel Advanced/ZP (Zappa); Intel Triton 82430FX PCIset aka. 430FX
CPU	Intel Pentium 75
RAM	72 MiB (128 MiB max.)
Floppy	3.5" 2.88MB
Storage	IDE Controller Intel 82371FB aka. PIIX, ATA-2 16 MB/s
	IDE hard disk 2048 GB
	ATAPI CD-ROM drive
Video	S3 Trio64 based VGA
Network	10Mb/s ethernet ISA

Slackware Linux 3.0 on a PCem Pentium 75

Slackware

Established back in 1993, Slackware (The Slackware Linux Project; Wikipedia) is the oldest surviving Linux distribution...

Slackware Linux 3.0 was the first Slackware release to have an official CD-ROM distribution and support installation from CD-ROM. Released in November 1995, the same month as the Pentium Pro. So complete system support is limited to i386, i486 and early Pentium systems.

Fortunately I have a Pentium based system that consists of hardware from this era: tilia. And that machine can be approximated using an Intel 430fx based system in PC emulators such as PCem.

PCem

The IBM PC and compatibles emulator PCem supports a range of PC system, from the original Intel 8088 based IBM PC through to a early 2000s slot 1 based Pentium II system. This includes a couple of systems featuring the Intel 430fx chipset which makes them equivalent to our physical system.

So the target emulated hardware is:

Mainboard	Intel Advanced/ZP (Zappa); Intel Triton 82430FX PCIset aka. 430FX
CPU	Intel Pentium 75
RAM	72 MiB (128 MiB max.)
Floppy	3.5" 2.88MB
Storage	IDE Controller Intel 82371FB aka. PIIX, ATA-2 16 MB/s
	IDE hard disk 2048 GB
	ATAPI CD-ROM drive
Video	S3 Trio64 based VGA
Network	10Mb/s ethernet ISA

Slackware Linux 3.0 on QEMU

Slackware

Established back in 1993, Slackware (The Slackware Linux Project; Wikipedia) is the oldest surviving Linux distribution...

Slackware Linux 3.0 was the first Slackware release to have an official CD-ROM distribution and support installation from CD-ROM. Released in November 1995, the same month as the Pentium Pro, it doesn't have support for a lot of the more modern hardware emulated by QEMU...

QEMU

The default QEMU i386 system emulation ('pc') is based on Intel's "Natoma" (Intel 440FX & PIIX3) chipset for Pentium Pro and Pentium II processors, which was released in 1996 (List of Intel chipsets - Wikipedia):

• Model: "pc" - Intel 440FX & PIIX3 "Natoma"
• CPU: "qemu32" - QEMU Virtual CPU (default)
• RAM: 128 MiB default, 2 GiB max.
• Bus: PCI and ISA
• Storage controller: IDE (PIIX3)
• Network interface: "e1000" - Intel 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller, 1,000 Mb/s ethernet
• Graphics: "std" - Standard VGA (with Bochs VBE)

Since the kernels included with Slackware 3.0 are older than this, they don't recognize the hardware and use generic methods to run on the system. Distributions based on the Linux 2.0 series or later kernels would be a better choice for the 'pc' machine (Linux Version 2.0 | Linux Journal).

Fortunately QEMU has a generic ISA based PC system profile ('isapc') which provides an option that is more in keeping with the hardware available when Slackware 3.0 was released:

• Model: "isapc" - ISA bus PC
• CPU: "486" - Intel i486DX/4
• RAM: 128 MiB default, 2 GiB max.
• Bus: ISA
• Storage controller: IDE
• Network interface: "ne2k_isa" - NE2000 ISA, 10 Mb/s ethernet (IRQ 9, I/O 0x300)
• Graphics: "cirrus" - Cirrus GD-5446 VGA ISA

This isn't ideal, given that PCI based 486 and Pentium based systems existed at the time, but QEMU doesn't provide the appropriate chipsets for those systems, so exploration of those options will have to be on real hardware, or using other emulators (e.g. Bochs, PCem, etc.).

BeOS - System Information

BeOS

The BeOS operating system (Wikipedia) is a multimedia operating system from the late 1990s...

Platform

BeOS Release 5.0 Professional supported two system architectures (see BeOS Ready Hardware List):

1. PowerPC - BeBox and various pre-G3 Power Macintosh systems and compatibles
2. x86 - various systems based on Intel Pentium, Pentium Pro, Pentium II, Pentium III & Celeron processors and compatibles (e.g. AMD K6, K6-2, K6-III & Athlon; Cyrix 686mx, 686GXm, & M II; IDT WinChip C6 & WinChip 2).

The hardware that can run BeOS is aging and can be difficult to obtain, so there is a need to consider emulation/virtualization options as alternatives to sourcing hardware.