Tips & tricks

Getting one's hands on a real old machine may not always be viable. Since the general idea is to be using a computer with limited resources, there are ways this can be achieved through software methods on modern hardware.

Perhaps you're only looking for tips on what software to use. See this list.

How-to

Limiting RAM on OpenBSD

• edit /etc/boot.conf
• add: machine mem =512M
• reboot

Limiting RAM and CPUs on Linux machines with the GRUB bootloader

• edit /etc/default/grub
• add/edit line GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX="mem=512M maxcpus=1"
• run grub-update
• reboot

Limiting RAM and CPU in plan9

In plan9.ini

• *nomp=1
• *ncpu=1
• *maxmem=512M

Recommended software

This is a list of software observed to be used by the community.

Desktop environments/window managers

• cwm
• ctwm
• dwm
• englightement
• i3
• icewm
• lxde
• ratpoison
• sway
• windowmaker/gnustep

Email clients

• alpine
• claws-mail
• mutt
• sylpheed

IRC

• irssi
• hexchat
• weechat

Text editors

• nano/pico
• leafpad
• mousepad
• vi/nvi/vim

Web browsers

• badwolf
• links2
• luakit
• lynx
• netsurf
• qutebrowser
• surf-browser
• vimb
• w3m

Finger without finger daemon

See https://plan.cat