Nina KalininaWhat do we have here? NEC PC-9821 laptop (non-PC compatible from Japan that can run Windows and a special MS-DOS version), running a rare variety of Linux called Plamo Linux/98. Linux 2.4.22, XFree86 4.3, and some Slackware compatibility. More screenshots - but from the screencapture device - will follow 🧵
Plamo Linux comes with an unusual window manager that is definitely not copied from Windows 9x, and doesn't have any icons from Windows 3.x. Geroware Qvwm is all animated, and thus fairly slow on a non-accelerated video.
You need to watch the video to appreciate how restless this window manager is! I don't think it's common for Japanese computing, by the way, just feels very hacker-y. "Hey I made these icons animated for fun! Also there's Oneko!"
"Netscape" button opens Wazilla - Japanese flavour of Mozilla. It can sort of open my home page, and Google.co.jp still works in it. Of course it can show Japanese characters!
The staff with kana "Mo" on the logo hints that 和ジラ might be a multi-level pun. Gecko/20030829 hints at the build date.
Of course, no modern cryptography.
Standard apps are not too strange. Emacs has a doctor that can make you feel better!
There are some games on the CD; Contrib CD has NScripter port so you could play Higurashi on Linux.
I want to install GNOME, which is done with a lovely script called 00INSTALL.sh. It reported that I miss a few packages.
It is a Japanese computer, so it allows input in Japanese. Pressing XFER will enable Canna (or something? But I only have Canna installed) that allows entering Japanese phonetically, and convert to kanji as needed. That's how you get こんにちは converted to 今日は!
The dependencies were installed, time to try the GNOME install script again! Each package is installed by feeding tgz to the `installpkg` tool, by the way - there's no centralised package manager, or I didn't find it (I did not read the fm, and I should have)
I remind you, this is a Pentium MMX computer with 64MB of RAM. All and all, it works pretty fast. I wonder if Gnome 2 will work OK on it or not. It sure takes a lot of time to install.
A few hiccups, and we have Gnome 2.2 running on this Pentium-bases PC-9821 laptop. Yay! It is a bit slow, but it feels like home.
Sending the screenshot home feels like pain. Such file or directo, much wow
Things are so slow, taking screenshots from Gnome itself is probably not a good idea. 64MB of RAM is not really enough for everything, so Nautilus regularly OOMs. Let's add 64MB of swap...
With the swap on, taking screenshots of GNOME goodness becomes a real possibility.
For whatever reason, GNOME is almost fully in English; perhaps, there wasn't a Japanese version back then? Or it is possible that my locale settings are all wrong.
Yep, my locale was broken. Now the locale is okay, but instead of metacity I'm running Gnome with twm and this is absolutely not how it should look like. 
Now this Gnome2 install feels properly PC-98 ready.
Also,it comes with TGIF?!
Any requests for software to try on the computer? Plamo/98 might not have everything, but it has SOMETHING
root42@root42 what is that! And where to find it?
@root42 alas, not in the list of packages :( and I don't have a tool chain for this system (yet?)
@nina_kali_nina you probably only need xmkmf, make and gcc. Plus the X11 headers.
@root42 this little maneuver is gonna cost us 51 years, on this Pentium MMX with 2x CD and 3.5GB partition. But I'll try it one day, I hope
@nina_kali_nina poppycock! I compiled kernels on a 486SX-25 back in the day to get soundcard support (before loadable modules) and every try took 45 minutes! One little game will not be THAT bad. :)
@root42 gcc 2.95 and whatever imake I have on the system aren't good enough; upgrading to gcc 3.3 isn't trivial. But I'll try nevertheless.
@root42 I have a weird Frankenstein monster made of different Plamo versions that has gcc-3, I've spent over an hour and a half on making it, and it still needs tweaking before it can compile anything...
@root42 I give up, compiling X11 things for this is nearly impossible
F4GRX Sébastien@nina_kali_nina @root42 NULL undeclared is not a great start :/
ouroukaye@nina_kali_nina @root42 combination of old style window and japanese alphabet is very nice to the eyes
@nina_kali_nina gcc 2.95 should be fine for older xblast versions. Maybe don‘t pick the most recent one but one from the era. Also, creating the Makefile should happen with the xmkmf command, not imake.
@root42 I had no idea about xmkmf, and there wasn't a README for some reason. Now we're talking, I only need to bring the resources
Chip@root42 @nina_kali_nina Should be a full gcc and tools in the d set. And X headers in the x set.
Lunar 🛸 ♾@lunarloony @root42 same, no packages :(
dgelessus@nina_kali_nina does it have Enigma (that GPL game with the mouse-controlled black marble)? A 2003 distro might be a little early for it, but the game already had a couple of releases by then, so I'm curious
@dgelessus there's no Lua, so no Enigma. And yes, it's a bit early unfortunately :<
@nina_kali_nina ah dang, not too surprising though. Thanks for checking :D
No Lua surprises me more... isn't Lua used by, like, half of everything from the early 2000s? (okay, mostly by video games I guess, but I'd have expected *some* popular OSS to use it by then)
@dgelessus apparently not in Japan. I guess Ruby must have been a big thing
wyatt@nina_kali_nina what is the cpu
@wyatt Pentium MMX 150 MHz!
@nina_kali_nina ah significantly stronger than what I've got.
I wonder if an old version of Wine would work on it.
I wonder if an old version of Wine would work on it.
@wyatt probably, but it usually isn't very fun. It should run ReactOS, even - but there's no SSE, so no modern soft can be run
@nina_kali_nina yeah i was just thinking windows visual novels in nscripter
@nina_kali_nina from what i've read though, reactos on pc-98 is not very optimized even on pentium 2/3 (or celeron near equivalent) machines
@nina_kali_nina https://cyber.dabamos.de/unix/x11/#xneko would be fitting
@wyatt Plamo 3.x installs oneko with X: https://tech.lgbt/@nina_kali_nina/115271948453030749
Nina Kalinina (@[email protected])
Attached: 1 video You need to watch the video to appreciate how restless this window manager is! I don't think it's common for Japanese computing, by the way, just feels very hacker-y. "Hey I made these icons animated for fun! Also there's Oneko!"
@nina_kali_nina looks absolutely correct for twm. :)
Koutsie 
@nina_kali_nina I'd love to see wiby on that thing ✴️
@nina_kali_nina holy shit 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰
@k peak computing!
@nina_kali_nina fucking love it!!
hell yeah!
i gotta make my services accessible via http....
@k strictly speaking, this one supports TLS, but no one cares supporting old cipher suits anymore
@nina_kali_nina Hmmmmmmmm
the-sauna.icu should show an ISS page there then
And k0.tel shouldn't even load haha
phooky@nina_kali_nina xmms default theme 4 eva
Jez 🍞🌹
@nina_kali_nina ah, the days when Eight Megabytes And Constantly Swapping was a sick burn 😂
@nina_kali_nina gnome 2 still looks modern!
||| /\ |/ [ []@nina_kali_nina install XFCE on a recent Debian and you'll get almost the same default interface 😄 (disclaimer: I use XFCE uhuh)
@zabow XFCE ftw!
Chiel | خیل | Хил | Χιλ@nina_kali_nina @jwz does about:jwz work in the browser?
Inanna🇵🇸 
@nina_kali_nina FVWM95 ?
It has been a long time ago since...
You could give it a try with Enlingmenth. Back in the day, was awesome.
@FantasmitaAsex it is not fvwm, it is QV Windows, a completely different and even weirder thing! There is enlightenment 0.16 for this Linux - like in Red Hat 6. It probably could look like on the screenshot I found online, but this video card has no acceleration, so it'd be super slow
@nina_kali_nina internet search it's so broken, that I can't find anything about qv Windows. I didn't know it.
@FantasmitaAsex unfortunately yes ;( lots of information about this Linux distribution is not readily available online, either - I need to use the Internet Archive to fish for it