Kickstarting an OLD laptop

[Varjagy]

I have this old laptop, and I want to get it running using Linux.

 

Where should I start, what distro should I try?

 

I have tried these, just because I have them on discs: Mandriva, Ubuntu (the low mem version) and DSL.

 

Would Slack be a way to go?

[znx]

Slack is really good for old hardware, as is Debian. Sometimes throwing on a small Linux system (DSL or ZipSlack for instance) can prove just as much fun :)

[Varjagy]

I'll start with Debian then, floppy install of all things :)

[anyweb]

please post your experiences, because guess what, i have an old 486 here that I want to install something on,

 

it's so old it has no PCI cards, and the network card is ISA !!!

 

ancient !

 

cheers

anyweb

[Varjagy]

Ok, I started this, and I got an "error". I'll type it here:

 

[!!] Low memory

 

Insufficient memory to to install

 

This system does not have enough memory to be installed with this version of the Debian installer. At least 22 megabytes of memory are required. If you continue with the installation, unpredictable and broke behavior will likely result. You should reboot now and add memory, or find some other way to install Debian.

 

-------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Nice to get an honest message before install, and then having all kinds of weird things happen.

 

Since I don't have any memory this old around, I'll try to push on, and see what happens.

[Varjagy]

Nope, this failed, as it told me it would.

 

Any tips, should I try a Slackware floppy boot?

[anyweb]

try fedora for the laff :)

[znx]

Eeep 22Mb? [img]<___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_dry.png[/img]

 

[img]<___base_url___>/uploads/emoticons/default_rolleyes.gif[/img] no wonder nothing is working hehe. Try ZipSlack it only require 16Mb RAM I believe.

[Varjagy]

Ok, I now have a running OS on this thing.

 

Something is just weird with this laptop, so I couldn't manage to get Slackware to install.

 

I ended up with NetBSD, and it looks to be running just fine.

 

Thanks for the help, especially znx for explaining some thing to me on the chat.

[Issadle]

please post your experiences, because guess what, i have an old 486 here that I want to install something on, 

it's so old it has no PCI cards, and the network card is ISA !!!

 

ancient !

 

cheers

anyweb

this is where I can help yay idk if this is a linux only post but this is what I learned on so I know the oldest stuff best [/url]http://www.freedos.org/ if you are totally opensource enthusiast but for dos most of the tools are propritairy you can get multiple desktops and the such to do multitasking you can even integrate the linux kernel into it does the system have more than 8 megs of ram? if not it might be a bit daunting a task to do linux I dont know how but my friend does and he talks alot about it linux can run even at 2 megs of ram and a 12 mhz proc like a p4 3 ghz runs windows xp it is an old 8086 with 2 megs maxed ram running x11 and kde 1.0 with kernel 1.63 a word processor on a whopping 35 meg hdd he even has lan with internet running on it its really funny to see but really slow the lan is an old coaxle cable... I had to purchase a coaxle to 10/100 adapter... pretty funny stuff the sheer satisfaction to see google on such an old pc is pretty funny ya it was something like 8 to 16 colors but it worked whats the system specs I can find you lotsa programs for dos to run [url=http://www.dosgames.com]http://www.dosgames.com GAWD i love old 486's for all those games rip all those games even if some are demos and make a weekend out of it take a look back in time some are lotsa fun and worth the headaches... I even think I have a copy of redneck rampage laying around full copy if ya wanna play it... Dos like linux is lotsa fun if you do things correctly