back on topic, the 4MB laptop howto has some great stuff for low spec machines, not just laptops.
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/4mb-Laptops.html On Sun, 26 Jan 2003 22:12:47 +1300 Mark Carey <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi, > In true geek fashion I went away for a holiday, did some consulting work and > ended up with a project machine. Long story .... > > Specs: > Cyrix 486 DX2 66 MHz > 8 MB Ram (Single SIMM) > 4DVS 2.0 Motherboard, (1 ISA 8 Bit, 3 ISA 16 Bit, 3 VESA) - Unknown > Manufacturer (Tomato?) > Creative Sound Blaster 16 (CT2910, IDE, Panasonic CDROM "IDE like" > connector) > * 1 SAMSUNG HDD > * 1 Creative CDROM CD400T > Trident TVGA-9000i-1 Video (ISA) > ISA Controller Card (COM/Parallel etc ports ...) > * 1 Conner HDD > > So I thought I can make Linux work on this puppy, right .... well read more. > I scoured the intenet (www.google.co.nz) looking for a manual for the > motherboard, only to find some scanned pages of part of a mannual, which > contained the right jumper settings for clearing the CMOS (I mean who puts > passwords on BIOS), so no manual just 5 jpg images that are scans of parts > of a manual, I have all the jumper settings for CPUs the memory table > telling me she should take up to 64 MB of RAM. > > Distros Attempted: > > => Mandrake, No compiled for i586 > > => Redhat 8.0, No > (1) Refuses to start a text mode install on 8 MB of Ram > (2) Kernel Panics while trying to kill the idle process with 24 MB > of RAM (8+8+8, the last two SIMMS are identical the first is different) > (3) Kernel Panics while trying to kill the init process with 16 MB > of RAM (8+8, different SIMMs) > (4) Fails to POST with 16 MB of RAM (8+8 Identical SIMMs) > > => Slackware 8.0 (Cheers Greg@REAP I know you still read this list) > Boots with 8MB, loads the ramdisk image uncompresses the kernel and > fires it up. Finds, > hda: Conner Peripherals 540 MB - CFS 541A, 516 MB w/0kB Cache, > CHS=1048/16/63 > hdc: SAMSUNG SHD-30560A (APRO-5) SSI, 535 MB w/128kB Cache, CHS=1087/16/63 > ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14 > ide1 at 0x170-0x177,0x376 on irq 15 > > Note that it sees the HDD on the IDE channel of the Sound Blaster 16 but not > the CDROM or does it (see lines starting with ide)? My problem is > irrespective of which slackware bootdisk image I use (tried sbpcd.i and > bare.i) I cant get the slackware installer started from the CD or cant fdisk > the disks to set up swap, if I use the color.gz rootdisk image off the CD. > > While attempting to set up swap partitions in the rudimentary shell I get > given as the installer suggests I do I try to run "#fdisk hda" or "#fdisk > hdc" and all I get returned to me is a varying number of, "Killed" so my > process are getting killed but why? Is it time for memtest86? > > All I want this puppy to do is run a kernel with iptables, ssh and samba > through an ISA network card, is this too much to ask? Note I cant try any > other distributions because I only have a 33.6 Kb/s modem availiable and no > CR writer. NFS install is out as I dont have another Linux box only a Win95 > one, > > Off to the beach tommorow so discuss it among yourselves and I will try the > results next weekend. > > Any suggestions ........ > > Mark Carey > -- Nick Rout Barrister & Solicitor Christchurch, NZ Ph +64 3 3798966 Fax + 64 3 3798853 http://www.rout.co.nz [EMAIL PROTECTED]
