[sf-lug] Browser on 486

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Wladyslaw Zbikowski (embeddedlinuxguy at gmail.com):

> (Cross-posted to sf-lug and tiny-tux). 

Crosspost removed.

> A friend is interested to run a
> modern browser (and other applications) on an 80486. My suggestion was
> to ditch X and run WebKit on the framebuffer because
> 
> - X is a bloated nightmare
> - Firefox or Chromium would be too much work to build for framebuffer
> - Super-lightweight browsers (e.g. Dillo) tend to break many sites
> - There are plenty of apps for browser or text console
> 
> Any alternative suggestions or recommended distros?

1. You _are_ going to break some features on some sites.  The RAM
constraint is too severe not to.

2.  http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/faq/index.php?page=kicking#linuxbrowser
lists all conceivable browser options, most of which (of course) cannot
conceivably run in the ridiculously tiny RAM complement of a 486, but a
few that can.

3.  The heyday of the i80486 was circa 1992, i.e. two decades ago.
Computers that old tend to be fragile, on the edge of failure, and 
require parts that are now specialty items when/if anything fails.