I like to tinker some with vintage computers.
Kind of fascinating. I am able to use much of TDE on single core
computers (compiled in a 32-bit VM on a 4-core system :-)). The systems
are running Slackware 14.1 32-bit with Seagate Barracuda IV spinners.
One system has 256 MB RAM, the other 448 MB.
As might be expected booting takes time but once that completes can TDE
be used? With nominal patience, yes. Even with 10/100 Mbs NICs,
Konqueror is responsive traversing network directories. The spinners are
a bottleneck but TDE is usable.
RAM usage after logging in (console/startx) and letting everything settle:
256 MB RAM: console: 14 MB; TDE: 239 MB 0 MB swap
448 MB RAM: console: 15 MB; TDE: 292 MB 0 MB swap
This is with Konqueror preloaded in the configs, minimal system daemons,
etc.
Further usage eventually sees swap get used because of the limited RAM.
Before anybody chuckles too hard, back in the KDE 3.5.x days these
systems were my daily drivers. Mostly with Windows NT4 but dual booting
into Slackware and 3.5.x. Likely some responsiveness could be squeezed
by using older Slackware releases matching the hardware of 20 years ago.
Use as a daily driver? Probably not. :-) That I can attempt this let
alone actually succeed is nonetheless remarkable. As a proof-of-concept
test I think this is a fine testament to how TDE is designed and
maintained. Just nice to see this work. Big smile!