Re: Linux distro for old laptop

From: David Green (mail.david_at_dsl.pipex.com)
Date: 09/13/04 

Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:52:25 +0000

Slackware all the way for old hardware (also supports NFS network install
if you have no cdrom), or LFS if you think your up to it.

Some helpful hints:
        Don't use xorg or xfree - try TinyX (Xdrive?), its far smaller
        Enable swap space to 64mb or twice physical memory (whichever is larger)
        If you do run X try using twm, icewm or fvwm (gnome + kde + lowmem = bad)
        Run minimal services - eg. kill of slackwares SSHD - superflous and
        memory consuming.
        Forgo NLS support (international languages) support using --disable-nls
        Be prepared to compile some packages using -Os instead of -O2 if you
        find your getting continual kernel panics due to memory exhaustion.

Slackware specifics:
        Use lowmem.i bootdisk - if this still fails boot using tomsrtbt and
        copy the installation mechnanism of your chosen distro to a small
        partition at the start of the disk (eg. /dev/hda1).
        (See man dd for more information).

TLDP also carries a good howto you may find useful, the 4mb laptop howto.

IMHO there aren't any workable *production* distros for low mem machines
(not including rescue distributions such as tomsrtbt)

Hope at least some of this helps,
Dave

> I recently picked up an old laptop, an AST Ascentia J Series J10
P75. I
> don't know much about it, but it's a P75, with about 750 mb hd, and 8 mb
> of ram. It doesn't have a CD-ROM drive, so I've been trying 

---
David Green (mail.david@dsl.pipex.com)
Hands up for human rights!
http://www.amnesty.org

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