I have several 486DX and AMD K6 (586) machines. They're great machines but modern Linux distros have abandoned them. That's not good. I've got work for these machines to do.

They need a Linux distro with modern kernel and tools.

Welcome to Two Towers Linux.


details.

Two Towers Linux contains the 6.14.11 linux kernel (one of the last to support 486) with networking support for 3com, Intel, and Realtek cards. A Busybox user-space is included.
Boots with as little as 48M RAM. Install takes about 70 MB disk-space.


releases.

-- ttl-minimal-v1.0.15.iso (81 MB) 8pm November 3, 2025
(minimal, includes: wget (https-capable), busybox, network support for 3com/realtek/intel cards, sshd (dropbear), telnetd for remote login, lspci), perl 5.40 and modules (see install note below)
NOTE: just discovered this kernel will not boot on a 486SX, no math emulation in kernel.

* old releases *

-- ttl-minimal-v1.0.7.iso (51 MB) 5pm October 28, 2025
(minimal, includes: wget (https-capable), perl, busybox, network support for 3com/realtek/intel cards, sshd (dropbear), telnetd for remote login, lspci)

-- ttl-minimal-v1.0.5.iso (51 MB) 8pm October 27, 2025
(minimal, includes: wget (https-capable), perl, busybox, network support for 3com/realtek/intel cards, sshd (dropbear), telnetd for remote login, lspci)

-- ttl-minimal-v1.0.0.iso (43 MB) / 10am October 25, 2025
(minimal, includes: wget (https-capable), perl, busybox, network support for 3com cards, sshd (dropbear), telnetd for remote login)


install.

1. Burn your chosen TTL ISO image to CD or USB.
2. Configure your machine to boot from it.
(note: older machines that can't normally boot from CDROM or USB can use PLOP https://www.plop.at/en/bootmanager/download.html)
3. At the TT prompt, run /setup.sh.
(note: this will make a file-system on /dev/sda and erase anything that was there. Stop here if you do not want this to happen.

./setup.sh

4. reboot
5. enjoy TTL linux

( notes: root-password is 'admin' / an ip of 192.168.1.77 is set on eth0. edit /init to change. )
( perl-5.40 is in the ttl-minimal-v1.0.15.iso. Installation instructions:

root@twotowers:/root# mount /dev/sr0 /mnt/cdrom
root@twotowers:/root# tar zxvf /mnt/cdrom/tt-perl-5.40.tgz -C /

root@twotowers:/root# perl -v

This is perl 5, version 40, subversion 2 (v5.40.2) built for i486-linux

Copyright 1987-2025, Larry Wall

performance.

Two Towers Linux boots the 6.14.11 kernel in under 60s on real 486 DX-33 hardware with 48M RAM! Check it out here -> video.


c compiler.

The i486-linux-musl-native compiler that allows compiling C programs is available here: i486-linux-musl-native.tgz (90 MB)

example command line to compile on 486 hardware.

i486-linux-musl-gcc -O2 -march=i486 -static hello.c -o hello

f.a.q.

Q: Why the name TwoTowers Linux?

A: I have two tower PCs in my stable of Linux machines.
One, a 486 that I swap different models of 486 into, and two, an AMD K6-300.
As of right now the 486 is hard at work running TTL monitoring two services over SSH. Works great.
And the AMD-K6 is being used for TTL-release testing.

Q: Why? Won't everything be really slow?

A, If one is using a 486 for compute in 2025 and expecting it to be fast... well.
As it is I enjoy resurrecting legacy hardware and putting it back to work - and it is surprising how useful such a machine can still be.

Q: TTL doesn't support my machine. Can I get X driver included?

A: You bet. Drop me a note at twotowerslx@gmail.com and I'll see what I can do.


change log.

1.0.7
-- add 486SX, and floppy drive support (somehow it got unchecked), fix telnetd, fix scp