Re: Run linux on old computer?

From: Moe Trin (ibuprofin_at_painkiller.example.tld)
Date: 01/09/05

  • Next message: Tim: "Re: Internet connection problem" 
    Date: Sat, 08 Jan 2005 20:12:14 -0600

    In article <1PwDd.13552$d5.114438@newsb.telia.net>, Bengt Boysen wrote:

    >I have found an old computer, which has a 20 Mb harddrive and 8Mb of RAM.

    Damn, that's REALLY tiny. ALL main distributions (Debian, Mandrake,
    Slackware, SuSE, Fedora, etc) wouldn't have enough memory to start,
    and not enough disk space for the kernel, libraries, and a few utilities.

    >It is currently using Wndows 3.11 for workgroups and DOS 6.22. Is it
    >possible to run a small version of Linux on this box, if so which one
    >would you recommend? I have no further information on hardware specs.

    Is it a 386 or better? That's an absolute requirement. You should see
    that much in the boot messages. I pretty much doubt that it can, but
    you can have a look at

       http://www.distrowatch.com/

    or one of the sunsite mirrors - posting from .se... try

         * Finland
              + Espoo ftp.funet.fi/pub/Linux/mirrors/metalab/
         * Germany
              + Dresden ftp.tu-dresden.de/Linux/sunsite/
              + Göttingen ftp.gwdg.de/pub/linux/mirrors/sunsite/
              + Karlsruhe ftp://ftp.rz.uni-karlsruhe.de/pub/sunsite/
              + Mannheim ftp.ba-mannheim.de/pub/linux/mirror.sunsite/
              + Rostock ftp.uni-rostock.de/Linux/sunsite/
              + Stuttgart
                ftp.rus.uni-stuttgart.de/pub/unix/systems/linux/MIRROR.sunsite/
              + Tübingen
                ftp://ftp.uni-tuebingen.de/pub/linux/mirrors/ftp.metalab.unc.ed
                u/pub/Linux/
         * Norway
              + Trondheim ftp.nvg.unit.no/pub/linux/sunsite/
         * Poland
              + Warsaw sunsite.icm.edu.pl/pub/Linux/sunsite.unc.edu/

    Those are anonymous FTP servers - log in as 'anonymous' with your e-mail
    address as password, and change to the indicated directory. Then change
    to ./distributions/ and grab the 'index.html' page. That directory has
    about 100 different distributions you can download - some of them _might_
    be small enough. If so, you certainly won't be able to run X or any of the
    modern GUI applications. You really want something bigger and probably
    faster.

            Old guy

  • Next message: Tim: "Re: Internet connection problem"

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