On Sat, May 04, 2002 at 09:45:47AM -0700, Linux Rocks ! wrote: > Many distros will work on a 386 w/4 megs ram, some will only do i586 or > newer, like mandrake... If you look at the RPM's they will say > blah-blah.i386.rpm, those are compiled for i386 or up, mandrakes rpms are > blah-blah.i586.mdk.rpm, which require pentium cpu. I think debian, slackware, > (most all distros over 2 years old), OpenBSD, ... should work.
Nope, OpenBSD (with the GENERIC kernel at least) won't run on less than 8MB RAM. 8MB isn't even enough to install with the default install media. Of course, the sources are all available, and mucking through some Makefiles, you can build yourself a smaller kernel and/or install media. You'd most likely need to do that with a 2.4.x Linux kernel anyway. That's why Tom's Root Boot (or whatever it's called) uses a 2.0.x kernel, right? ... because it's a lot smaller? > The CPU isnt really the issue.... Um, it could be. If there's no math co-processor, the GNU floating point emulation code (which the BSD's use also) will make your kernel quite a bit larger, and the kernel needs real RAM ... probably why most small distros require an i486 or better. IMHO, unless you really, really want to waste a lot of time, don't even try. And if you do decide you have a bunch of free time and it might be fun, I would suggest trying to find and old (with a 2.2.x kernel) copy of Slackware or Tiny Linux, or maybe Owl from http://www.openwall.com/, which still ships with a 2.2 kernel, and is intended to be a small base install. -- <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
