I can't vouch for a '386, but I managed to quite easily install the 8 or so disketter version of Debian (over 2 years ago) on an old '486 with 8 MB RAM, a tiny HD, one floppy, and a 9,600 baud choke point of a serial port. I think I used apt-get to pull down some useful things like minicom and lynx. It worked quite well . . . command line only, of course. No room on the HD for X-Window.
Dennis Eberl, a.k.a., ~:> On Friday, May 3, 2002, at 05:32 PM, Dexter Graphic wrote: > Dan, this might solve your laptop problems. Take a look at Wolf > below, also tiny Linux: http://tiny.seul.org/en/ -Dexter > > > From http://www.mandrakeforum.com/article.php?sid=2102&lang=en > > Question: > > I have a problem, and I've been asking for help for a while and > nobody could come up with a solution. I have a very old > notebook, 386 processor with 4 MB RAM and floppy is the only > input, which linux would run with this limited hardware, and > where to find it? > > Answer: > > A handful of linux micro-distributions exist which run from a > single floppy. Some are meant to be used as a rescue tool, > others as firewalls, third as... Here is a short list, just for > illustration: > > Pocket Linux: simple workstation with ssh client. > http://www.pocket-lnx.org/about.html > > WOLF (Web On a Linux Floppy): Several simple client > distributions; webbrowsing with lynx, email, ftp. > http://www.woalf.uklinux.net/ > > LRP rooter... > http://master-www.linuxrouter.org:8080/ > > Giotto. Modular mini distro. Various stuff... > http://www.quietsche-entchen.de/giotto/ > > floppyfw. Firewall... > http://www.zelow.no/floppyfw/ > > There is more, but this is enough for the illustration, I > suppose... The problem is: Most (all?) of these > mini-distributions require 8Mb RAM. Many require i486 too. > >
