My 486 Server
Infrastructure
self-hosted web server
SHOW HN2022
How HN took it
4 positive, 28 neutral or asking, 0 mixed, 10 critical, out of 42 comments about the project. Thread score -0.14.
Performance: 1 for, 8 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 againstIdea: 1 for, 0 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Impressive that a custom OS and TCP/IP stack were written from scratch
From 1 comment
Yep this! People would regularly run windows 95 on a 486 with 8-16mb of ram. This was their daily driver which did word, dial up/aol/prodigy, messaging, games, etc. I think the…
drzaiusapelord on HN
Objections
Site struggled or timed out under Hacker News traffic
From 3 comments
Not holding up great it seems :)
loloquwowndueo on HNVery cool. How many of us did it take to DDOS the server? It doesn't load for me either :)
glassprongs on HNI can't access it either. It looks like it's just timing out. We did it, guys! :D
tentacleuno on HN
A 486 is powerful enough for a web server, so the performance is a software issue
From 2 comments
We used to serve serious traffic off 486 machines, so if anything it's probably a software issue. Perhaps FreeBSD/i386 would be an appropriate choice? If you weren't there you…
jeffbee on HNYep this! People would regularly run windows 95 on a 486 with 8-16mb of ram. This was their daily driver which did word, dial up/aol/prodigy, messaging, games, etc. I think the…
drzaiusapelord on HN
Questions
What are the CPU and memory usage under load?
From 1 comment
Can you share how it's doing cpu/memory wise and his it's holding up in general under what I assume I heavy load from HN?
soupshield on HN
What network cards are supported?
From 1 comment
I'm very interested in the network stack, having explored it for a while for https://github.com/akkartik/mu before giving up. What sort of network card do you support?
akkartik on HN
Alternatives named
OpenWRT on a 486 as a lighter embedded server option
From 1 comment
OpenWRT for 486 would be a faster choice. Just crosscompile pkgs from another machine. You'll have http and gopher support granted. If libressl compile and run, place it under…
anthk on HN