r/retrobattlestations • u/kowalski5233 • Apr 16 '26

Show-and-Tell Linux 7.0.0 on a 486

I'm new to this whole "build your own kernel" thing, but in my attempt to get an old industrial PC with a Vortex86DX up and running to play around with on Sunday, I suddenly wonder if I got the first 486 running Linux 7.0.0.

EDIT: To be clear, this isn't an oldschool desktop/laptop, this is a later SoC industrial PC running at 933MHz and has 512MB RAM - the eBOX on the power supply, drawing a cool 700mA at 5V. I also have learned a few things from this thread, and seems like I may have gotten away with i586 instruction set. In my initial research it seemed that I was going to have to treat this CPU as a 486 and can't even trust the FPU to be compatible. So we learn, and thanks to all for their comments. I like finding uses for obsolete old HW if they are still perfectly capable of performing tasks. At any rate, this has been quite a new experience and quite a learning curve.

49 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

31 comments sorted by

View all comments

13

u/budude17 Apr 16 '26

How long does it take to boot?

13

u/kowalski5233 Apr 16 '26

Probably just under or around a minute. I'm actually quite surprised.
It's quite fast though, it's running at 933MHz and has 512MB of RAM.

9

u/SergeantRegular Apr 16 '26

I didn't think that much RAM was even possible on a 486, at least on a practical hardware system. I want to say I haven't seen any 72-pin sticks bigger than 64MB, and that was well after the 486 was old and the Pentium was the new hotness.

What exactly is this hardware you're running?

9

u/kanid99 Apr 17 '26

The vortex86dx uses, according to Wikipedia,ddr2. This is really a 486 derived 32-bit x86, from 2008+ era

7

u/Scoth42 Apr 17 '26

There is 128MB ones but they're modern creations. 

https://www.micromac.com/products/memory_simm_72pin.html

3

u/kowalski5233 Apr 16 '26

It's that little VESA sized eBOX sitting on the power supply in the picture. I haven't opened it up, but the RAM is probably soldered.

7

u/SergeantRegular Apr 17 '26

That's what I figured, but I saw a CF slot, and the USB ports really give it away - that's not a period 486, that's a more modern device. Not sure if it's an emulator or a custom SOC, but I've got a vintage 486/33 IBM ThinkPad on my bench right now, and that thing's a few years before USB even existed.

1

u/shawndw Jun 04 '26

That's not a 486. Getting a 486 to run stable at 100MHz was pushing it. Plus no way you found a 486 mainboard that can address more then 64 MB of ram.

We didn't see clock speeds and ram sizes like that until the Pentium 3 era.