Comments on: Howto: Build a functional Lowarch system

By: Another Arch repository for i586 « Motho ke motho ka botho

Another Arch repository for i586 « Motho ke motho ka botho — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 01:26:58 +0000

[...] back, that talks about bumping Lowarch up to a more current rendition. If I remember right from the last time I tried that stunt, there were problems with pacman and with building software from [...]

By: The myth of Arch Linux and the i586 « Motho ke motho ka botho

The myth of Arch Linux and the i586 « Motho ke motho ka botho — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 00:54:10 +0000

[...] ease of use with other, outside architectures, but sadly they always seem to sputter. There was the Lowarch project from a few years ago, which I still seed the torrent for. And about a year and a half ago I [...]

By: Banquo’s ghost: Lowarch 0.1.1 ISO and torrent « Motho ke motho ka botho

Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:02:43 +0000

[...] in case you don’t know what that is, was an i586 recompile of Arch Linux, and did amazing things for pre-i686 machines. Short of compiling it all yourself, it’s hard to find a faster, more [...]

By: Thinker

Thinker — Sun, 03 Aug 2008 01:33:15 +0000

I really would like to thank you for that CFLAG hint! I finally got my Arch, dual core laptop to boot from power button to usable desktop in > 20 secs using the various tips on your website.

By: K.Mandla

K.Mandla — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:46:26 +0000

Right on. If you run into problems, let us know. Remember that Lowarch is a year and a half out of date now, which means the software is rather old and creaky. You can update some of it manually, but it’s tough going.

On the other hand, a Pentium II will run straight Arch, so you can get the freshest software and best speeds from that, instead of Lowarch. Give Lowarch a try if you like, but Arch is current, and a vast improvement.

Cheers and good luck!

By: NittanyLion

NittanyLion — Tue, 06 May 2008 21:12:47 +0000

You’ve convinced me. I have a Twinhead P88TE laptop, with a Pentium II (333MHz), 256 MB max RAM, that I’ve been trying to bring back to life from exile in at the bottom of a closet. When I obtained the Twinhead it ran Windows 98 in slow motion.

So far, I’ve tried Damn Small Linux and Puppy. DSL had an odd quirk in that it ran with only 128 MB of RAM but refused to boot with 256 MB installed. Damn Small Linux Not! did boot with all 256 MB installed but the DSL-N distro hasn’t been upgraded in over a year. Puppy did run and not badly but I didn’t like its un-Linuxlike habits (for example, can only run as root).

Your view that “the performance gap between Lowarch and other, more ‘complete’ distros is astounding” is what makes me want to give Lowarch a try. I’m poor enough to have to make due with the equipment I have and I’m intrigued about bringing old computer back from the dead.

Thanks for the review, I’ll describe my Lowarch experiences here when I have some.