What unix system can run on 386?

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Dependent_Bit7825@reddit

This is the very hardware I first ran Linux on. It was the SLS distribution, the kernel was 0.99plXX, and it came on floppies I made in the university computer lab. A LOT of floppies. It was really exciting.

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DriverX310@reddit

Older Linux kernels are 386 compatible. Also FreeBSD and other BSDs. You’d have to do some research to figure out what versions are compatible, but it’s 100% doable.

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GezoutenMeer@reddit

My first Linux ever, Slackware 1.1.52, ran on a 386/40.

Compiling Xwindows or the kernel was an full night task.

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Rattlehead71@reddit

The mechanical sounds of the spinning hard disk read/writes let you know it's still chugging away. When it gets quiet, time for the next step. You could get some naps in.

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jennergruhle@reddit

Miniscribe! A name that I remember well - I think I had a 20 or 40 MB XT-Bus drive from them. 3.5" but as high as the 5.25" drives of that era (1.6" if I remember correctly).

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MommyNeedsCoffee617@reddit

Full night? Luxury! My 386SX/20 took the whole weekend!

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Educational_Bee_6245@reddit

Didn't FreeBSD need an FPU and Linux came with a FPU emulator back then?

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thewiirocks@reddit

I believe you are correct. This was apparently a primary reason why many people ran Linux instead of 386BSD. Apparently, Linus donated an FPU emulator to the 386BSD project. No idea if it made it into early FreeBSD releases or not.

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Educational_Bee_6245@reddit

Oh, right 386BSD, Linux came before FreeBSD.

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Regular-Impression-6@reddit

Venturcom Venix !!! ATT Sys5 386. All of the free BSD distros came out on 386. Then SCO, Interactive Unix, Xenix, all were 386

Heady days! The great thing about the late 80s and early 90s was that there were so many choices. The terrible thing about the late 80s and early 90s was that you had to make a choice.

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Conandar@reddit

Couldn't afford real Unix back in the day (early 90s), so I used a package called Coherent, first, and then a few years later Linux became a semi-usable thing (back when it fit on a 1.2MB/1.44MB floppy).

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Enough-Fondant-4232@reddit

Back in the day it was Xenix.

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JasonMckin@reddit

Damn: Deep cut. That’s before Linux became popular right?

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NervousSkunk@reddit

That's from before Linux, full stop!

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guitpick@reddit

Fun fact: AMD released this processor line in March 1991, almost the same time that Linux Torvalds started working on the Linux kernel.

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NervousSkunk@reddit

I remember in 1992 telling my boss that we should really be looking at doing Linux device drivers for our products, as well as all the other UNIX variants, and, after I had told him what it was, him telling me that nobody would want to use a free operating system for anything serious. His prediction may not have been correct! I did try Googling him just now, to see what he's been up to, but he is totally absent from the internet, so I suspect he passed away a long time ago. What did pop up, though, is a picture of a book called "Wankernomics".

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guitpick@reddit

Then you'll appreciate this classic, relevant part at 5:15.
Every OS Sucks - Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie

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RvstiNiall@reddit

I know it's a typo due to how close the S and X are on the keyboard, but lol @ Linux Torvalds. Love it.

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laffer1@reddit

It was originally a Microsoft product

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sprashoo@reddit

I remember when SCO was a cool company that everyone admired.

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thejpster@reddit

Two different companies though. Caldera bought the Santa Cruz Operation and renamed themselves SCO Group. Xenix, UnixWare, and OpenServer predate the buyout and the subsequent shenanigans.

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sprashoo@reddit

Yep, definitely not the same people but they forever ruined the name.

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RepliesOnlyToIdiots@reddit

Their C compiler gave better warning and error messages, which I really appreciated.

And then they were evil.

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Flupsy@reddit

Oh you just unlocked all my memories of the SCO meltdown and drama.

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CrankyTechGeek@reddit

Used to do data capture on a 386 running Xenix back in the late 80s. It had Informix installed, Wyse 50 terminals and an open reel tape drive. Learned to use vi on it.

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AllReflection@reddit

Computers were expensive back then and MSFT software was easy to copy and install for free over and over, so I would build Windows 3.1 Frankensystems for friends from corporate throwaway parts. Came across an old ESDI drive with SCO Xenix around 1992 and was quite puzzled! 😅

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IQueryVisiC@reddit

MSFT ported Unix to 8088 and called it Xenix.

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sidusnare@reddit

Or MINIX, or BSD

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Alternative-Grade103@reddit

NetBSD will run on pretty much anything.

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machacker89@reddit

I 2nd that

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DrFrankenstein90@reddit

Old Linux kernels, BSD, Minix, XENIX, System V

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HoJoPo@reddit

My first Linux system was a 386/40, 4MB RAM with a 345 MB Maxtor hard drive and Oak OTI-067 VGA card. I used it from 1992 through 1995 when I upgraded to a 486DX2/80 system.

You should be able to run Linux distros from around 1995 to 1997 without much issue on that and the distro will configure the display for you, as setting up your X config was a lot of fun early on....

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gnntech@reddit

Consider OS/2 Warp. It runs pretty well on a 386 w/8mb of RAM. Not *nix but also not DOS/Windows either.

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laffer1@reddit

Warp 3. 4 wouldn’t run well

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Rattlehead71@reddit

The COMDEX when Warp was released was a drunkfest. They had free booze flowing in the back "meeting room" areas. I got tons of OS/2 Warp swag and a hangover.

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whatyoucallmetoday@reddit

Warp was good for running dos graphic apps in a window. I think I demoed playing Doom in two dos windows.

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gbarnas@reddit

Anyone remember Microport SVR2 for 286 and later 386? Mid-80's we were putting systems together with 4MB RAM and 4 serial ports for Open Systems accounting software.

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porpoisepurpose42@reddit

Interactive SysVr3.2.

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InsaneGuyReggie@reddit

I’m going to say MINIX or SCO with 8MB RAM, but the old MINIX doesn’t have much software that can work with it like there used to be.

The other option is Basic Linux (if you can find it), which runs on top of DOS via loadlin.exe. I ran it on a 386sx/25 with 8MB RAM. It had X and some other things. It’s pretty old now though.

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O_martelo_de_deus@reddit

Xenix como alguém já disse, a solução unix da Microsoft vendida pela SCO. Ainda tenho meu certificado do curso de Xenix de 1991.

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VivienM7@reddit

I remember seeing 486 boxes struggling with XFree86 and... what was that window manager in the days before KDE/Gnome, so I'm not sure a 386 will do great for GUI.

I would suggest starting with a period-correct operating system, but I don't know what I would be - the things I was thinking about are more \~1997-1998, and I think those would be a major league stretch on a 386.

Someone else may disagree with me, but my sense is that *NIX (or clones like Linux) on x86 hardware only really started being a thing in the mid-1990s and really targetted Pentiums or later 486s. Maybe there were some earlier commercial *NIX operating systems for x86 that could be worth looking into. But everything I would have suggested (e.g. FreeBSD 2.28) is, on further reflection, a bit too new for a 386... and my sense is that pre-1995 or so, most people ran *NIX on workstations from the usual suspects (Sun, SGI, etc).

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dlarge6510@reddit

I'm not sure a 386 will do great for GUI.

It'll be fine. It's all in the graphics card and XFreee86 driver support anyway. For a window manager WindowMaker, After Step will run fine, I use WindowMaker today on my Ryzen.

And if really struggling then TWM is always available and that would run on a toaster if it had an X driver.

What is most important is RAM. 8-16MB is more than enough.

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DriverX310@reddit

https://www.reddit.com/r/retrobattlestations/s/NgbPz02CC6 Here’s someone running Slackware on a 386 SX, and apparently even with X.

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jjjacer@reddit

I know I posted one a while back of a 486 48 MB. Of RAM running slackware 8 or 9, and I think running Windows maker as my desktop, although it's been awhile so I'm not 100% sure on what I had set up at the time. Ran pretty good and even had internet access although of course modern websites don't work, but who needs those anyways

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whatyoucallmetoday@reddit

Window maker was great in the day. I wrote a CD player dock app. The code has been lost to the sands of time.

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whitemice@reddit

I ran six NCD X-terminals on an dual 80486DX system, running the LINUX version of Word Perfect mostly, and performance was excellent.

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VivienM7@reddit

fvwm, that’s the window manager I was thinking of…

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bobj33@reddit

twm was probably the most lightweight window manager

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twm

fvwm didn't seem to need much more resources though and had more features

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FVWM

XFree86 ran fine on 486 machines but you really needed about 8MB RAM to be relatively smooth. I ran it on a 486DX/33 with 16MB RAM at work and it was fine.

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whitemice@reddit

My 80386SX flew running X/Windows. Most home PCs really struggled due to lack of RAM and possibly crippled I/O systems; it wasn't really the CPU, even then.

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Zardoz84@reddit

Back in the day (1998), I ran SuSE Linux on a 486DX5-133 with full X11. And It run fine KDE 1, Enlightment and Gnome 1 .

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purgedreality@reddit

Geoworks Ensemble was the GOAT os on these machines.

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adeo888@reddit

NetBSD and OpenBSD still have active support for the i386 platform so they're current and receive updates.

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mcds99@reddit

There was a UNIX like OS called Coherent, I ran it on a 80286. It either would run on both a 286 & 386 or there was a 386 version.

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ellicottvilleny@reddit

Get red hat linux 5 (from about 1995)

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042376x@reddit

That came out in May 1998. Around the time of the first linux Expo.

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dgaxiola@reddit

NetBSD still supports i386 processors. I've not used it in a long, long time but it's listed as supported in the latest 10.1 release in 2024. Specific applications may need instructions found in newer CPUs.

https://www.netbsd.org/ports/

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eitohka@reddit

"Any i486 or better CPU should work". As far as I know, they dropped 80386 support around version 5.0: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2012/08/13/msg002866.html

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AllGovernmentsAreDad@reddit

IIRC, the last version that supports the literal 80386 without a math coprocessor is 4.0.1. I ran that for fun just a few years ago on a box with ESDI, IDE, and SCSI disks all working flawlessly.

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Blackholeofcalcutta@reddit

Heh, I ran Slackware on my 486DX4-100 and it ran fine. It took about 2 minutes from the time I would invoke “startx” until twm would be up. That was back in the lateish 90s. Tried running Slackware on my 386SX-33 and … it would load. It was really slow, though.

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whatyoucallmetoday@reddit

You could give 386BSD a try. I found this on one of those stack of software CDs you got with the purchase of a generic tan box PC back in the day. I think it had 0.1 on it.

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omega552003@reddit

Technically none/all as the last official version of Unix came out in 1979 and the 386 wasn't invented yet so it only can run in basic x86 like 8086.

The last version of Linux to support i386 was kernel 3.7

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EsoTechTrix@reddit

Ran like the first Slackware on my 386DX33. Would recommend.

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NervousSkunk@reddit

IUS, Interactive Unix SVR3.2, was OK.

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whitemice@reddit

I first ran LINUX - Yggdrasil with kernel 0.99a - on an 80386SX and a Trident (I believe) video card. The GUI came up, the sound card worked, everything just worked. And then I had all the kinds of tools I had at work on a very expensive UNIX (AIX) system. Never looked back.

Even then I had 16MB of RAM, which was a lot, and probably really helped the experience.

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impersonaljoemama@reddit

Xenix

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dim13@reddit

https://www.openbsd.org/i386.html

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eitohka@reddit

"All CPUs compatible with the Intel Pentium or later, with Intel-compatible hardware floating point support should work."

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DrunkUsr@reddit

Netbsd still supporting i386, linux you can try SHORK 486

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eitohka@reddit

"Any i486 or better CPU should work". As far as I know, they dropped 80386 support around version 5.0: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2012/08/13/msg002866.html

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MyTinyHappyPlace@reddit

„Of course it runs NetBSD“

https://www.netbsd.org/ports/i386/hardware.html

32MB is recommended, but it works with less, too.

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eitohka@reddit

"Any i486 or better CPU should work". As far as I know, they dropped 80386 support around version 5.0: https://mail-index.netbsd.org/port-i386/2012/08/13/msg002866.html

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the_humeister@reddit

Link says it needs at least a 486 processor. I don't remember which version dropped 386 processor support.

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Zardoz84@reddit

Old Linux, BSD, Minix 1 (2 I don''t know), SCO, Xenix...

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GigAHerZ64@reddit

Check out the youtube channel Old Computers Sucked. He has similar configuration machine and does quite a bit of linux stuff amongst other things.

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AnymooseProphet@reddit

I ran Debian Potato on a m68k SE/30 back in the day, but I didn't X.

You could probably run Potato (if you can find install disks, likely archived somewhere online) on 386 as long as you have a MMU.

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AnymooseProphet@reddit

I I didn't RUN X (as in X11)

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daddyd@reddit

just install an era specific linux distro or *bsd release and you'll be fine.

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4AGTE@reddit

NetBSD mentioned in other posts here doesn't work on a 386, it needs a 486 at a minimum. Same for Linux, which dropped 386 support some time in 2012. I'd recommend some mid-late 90s Linux/BSD at most, especially with just 8MB of RAM. Few years back I installed Debian 3.0 from 2002 on a 386DX40 with 64MB RAM and it worked, but took so long to get even to tty and was practically unusable, I didn't even bother with trying to install X.

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szab999@reddit

386BSD if you want to be time period accurate

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Danii_222222@reddit (OP)

I used it. 386BSD lacks support. 90% of existing old software will not compile.

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R-ten-K@reddit

You're not going to get any modern OS running on that. Especially if you lack the 387.

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szab999@reddit

Well that tracks with being time period accurate

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cjc4096@reddit

That's what I had in 1992-1993. Early SLS or Debian. Trident had good xfree86 support.

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mnlx@reddit

Yet the decent GUI that you can run on that AND have software that actually needs a GUI is Windows 3.11fW. Alternatively you can use a really early SCO, BSD or Linux release and with the latter spend a while reading stuff to configure it without frying your monitor so you can run twm to enjoy xclock, xeyes and go back to the shell.

You really want a Pentium and more RAM for these things.

Anyway, if you want the X Window experience you could try any DOS you prefer with DESQview/X. That's the most interesting thing I can think of with 8 MB.

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pfak@reddit

Minix?

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docshipley@reddit

System 3v2, Xenix, Minix, early Linux (Puppy Linux might still support 386), and of course NetBSD.

Or you could install UNIX >> DOS and DesqView/X over DOS, just for giggles.

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michaelpaoli@reddit

What unix system can run on 386?
8MB ram

As for current, there may be some BSD and some older Linux that can do that, but that 8 MiB of RAM may be your biggest practical limitation. So, I'm thinking 'bout 28 years ago, I was running some (even then) older SCO UNIX on Pentium ... that I believe would still run on 80386 ... but I was running it with 64 MiB of RAM ... though perhaps it would run on fair bit less than that ... or older versions might well do so. Likewise, sufficiently old versions of UNIX/Xenix, etc. and BSD targeted for 80386 may be able to run on that. Some might possibly require 80387 co-processor ... while others (most?) may just emulate that (alas, more slowly) if there's no math co-processor present. I might suggest look at the minimum and recommended specifications for the relevant (generally significantly older) OS versions/releases.

gui

Uhm, you may not get far with that on 8 MiB of RAM. Though I did to X on 64 MiB of RAM ... uhm, but due to the limited graphics card I was using (genuine Hercules graphics card (MDA), I was doing 1-bit monochrome X, so that wasn't too heavy on the RAM. Might also depend how much video RAM is on your video card. Anyway, I did have some RAM headroom on that, so not sure how low one can feasibly go with some flavor of *nix and X on 80386 for RAM ... but such *nix does go all the way back to about the mid 1980s, so somewhere between there and early 1990s, may be able to well find something that can do X and within 8MiB of RAM (and perhaps also with sufficient video RAM).

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Logan_McPhillips@reddit

I'm pretty sure I used to have a CD that came with a book that has a Slackware distro that I got running on a 386. It had some sort of GUI, KDE maybe?

Apparently Slack dropped support for the 386 back in 2003, so you're digging pretty deep into the archives to find something that will work.

And I remember playing around with Corel Linux back then and maybe tried it on a 386. Wikipedia says it needs a Pentium, but hey, maybe not? You could always try.

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dlarge6510@reddit

GNU/Linux is upwardly compatible with UNIX

There are plenty of "pure" UNIXen too

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Baselet@reddit

Is the ram maxed? 8 megs is very limited for anything X.

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Danii_222222@reddit (OP)

Yes.

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PecanLoveNubble@reddit

Nothing modern. i386 support was dropped from Linux quite some time ago. Maybe someone with some more *BSD knowledge can chime in on that front.