Debian has an install for 4M. I've had it up on a 386 66mhz with an 800Meg
hard drive yes it's slow but we all move too fast anyway and it's a great
way to teach your kids how to install and configure a computer. They also
learn what a good operating system can involve.
Bruce
----- Original Message -----
From: Riley Williams <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Daniel Knapp <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: Linux Laptop <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, May 21, 1999 1:40 PM
Subject: Re: Linux on old laptop?
> Hi Daniel.
>
> > Some days ago someone gave his very old laptop to me and I want
> > to install Linux on it. Is it possible to install Linux on such
> > an old laptop?
>
> > 80386, 4 MB RAM, 60 MB HDD.
>
> There's no problem with the processor, but both the RAM and the hard
> drive are definately on the small side. With an EXTREMELY careful
> configuration, it's probably doable, but I would definately look into
> upgrades first, as follows:
>
> 1. RAM. You may be lucky and discover that your laptop takes 30-pin
> or 72-pin SIMM's, in which case you can probably upgrade to at
> least 8M of RAM, which would be a considerable improvement. You
> could (and probably will) be unlucky and discover that it's some
> model-specific memory board, in which case you're stuck with 4M.
>
> 2. Hard drive. Most laptops use standard EIDE drives, although the
> 2.5" variety appears to be more common in laptops than the 3.5"
> variety found in desktops and tower systems. Both are freely
> available, although there's about a 20% price premium on the
> 2.5" variety, but a hard drive upgrade should simply be a case
> of taking the old drive out and plugging a new one in, then
> running the system setup software.
>
> I upgraded the hard drive in the old Toshiba T2100 that I obtained
> just after Christmas, replacing the supplied 730M 2.5" drive with a
> 4.3G one that cost me UKP 170. I'd previously downloaded the setup
> software from Toshiba's website, and when I ran that, I discovered
> that it auto-sized the hard drive, so it was just a case of run it
> once, doing nothing but exit it, to update the system settings.
>
> My recommendation would be to upgrade your hard drive to at least a
> 4.3G drive, larger if you can get them, and to allocate partitions as
> follows:
>
> Q> /dev/hda1 ~16M Linux native /boot (Active)
> Q> /dev/hda2 ~124M Linux swap
> Q> /dev/hda3 ~1.0G Linux native /
> Q> /dev/hda4 Rest Extended
>
> Q> /dev/hda5 ~1.5G Linux native /home/ftp/pub
> Q> /dev/hda6 250M Linux native /tmp
> Q> /dev/hda7 250M Linux native /var
> Q> /dev/hda8 Rest Linux native /home
>
> Putting the 16M (2 cylinders on modern drives) /boot partition at the
> beginning of the disk, with the boot images inside it, deals with any
> possible problems related to the 1023 cylinder limit of many older
> BIOS versions, and there's plenty of room in the root partition
> specified for a full installation of whatever your favourite
> distribution is.
>
> Also note that I've kept the partition sizes below 1.8G so as to avoid
> any problems relating to large partitions, as they generally kick in
> around the 2G mark.
>
> However, with only 4M of RAM, you'll probably need to enable swap
> space before you can actually install Linux, as most distributions
> need 6M of RAM to install without swap space...
>
> Best wishes from Riley.
>
> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> | There is something frustrating about the quality and speed of Linux |
> | development, ie., the quality is too high and the speed is too high, |
> | in other words, I can implement this XXXX feature, but I bet someone |
> | else has already done so and is just about to release their patch. |
> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
> * ftp://ftp.MemAlpha.cx/pub/rhw/Linux
> * http://www.MemAlpha.cx/kernel.versions.html
>
