Ron wrote:
> I have an old Dell 486 25MHz 8Mb with two 1 GB hard drives. I started an
> installation of SuSe Linux and all went well until I had to figure out what
> packages I needed to load since the 2 GB is way too small to do a full
> install.
.........
> I have two questions:
>
> 1. Is the little 486 box too small/slow to be useable for anything or can I
> do some or all of the above listed things with it?
>
In my experience, the 8MB is more of a problem that the disk space you have
there. 2GB should be plenty to install Linux - I've installed SUSE eval and
Redhat, they took about 750MB and 450MB (IIRC). I've done slackware installs on
machines with only 4MB RAM and 40MB disk - but I wouldnt recommend it! Have you
partitioned both disks completely for Linux? How (where) have you mounted the
second disk?
The problem with 8MB ram is that kernel and other large compiles will run very
slowly (if at all) and you dont get far with the ham stuff without needing some
of these sorts of things. Unfortunately, "old" 486's all seem to have the 8 X
1MB ram chips, and people tend to use these to learn Linux without risking
their main machines, but it does have disadvantages.
> 2. If it is useable, would someone be kind enough to give me some
> assistance on what I really need to load and what I can drop?
>
I'd suggest dropping X-windows. You can do lots at the command line, including
ham functions, and you'll need a lot less disk, CPU, and memory. Also, only
include the source code for stuff you intend to compile yourself. The more
mundane thing, like standard operating system utilities, you can just use the
binaries for.
Hope this helps
73
Steve, vk5asf
