Bad
news, most Linux installers will not work under 4M of RAM. Things may have
changed with new kernels, but at one point 2-4M was minimum memory required to
boot Linux at all!!
As a
guide...
* Anything that boots X during install = no
(I'm thinking Mandrake here)
*
OpenBSD systems I think need 12M for install, but less to
run
*
Slackware is the best for running on low end machines from my
experience
* Redhat is
bloatware and not designed for low spec
machines
* "Whatever the
installation docs for the distribution say"... sorry, but it has to be
said.
Also,
depending on how you install matters as well, most installers will require even
more RAM if you are booting off a floppy set due to ramdisks which also keep
that 4M thing a limit. 8M should be plenty, but if you can get a kernel that
runs in 4M RAM, then try a preinstalled system like LRP, Smoothwall?, ZipSlack,
or maybe some other tiny linux distribution to get around the
installers.
To those familiar with Redhat Linux 7.1, I was intending to install this version on my laptop- it's an old piece of hardware, an Acer Note Light. It houses a Pentium 1 at 100MHz, 1 MB DRAM and a 774 MB hard disk.
Now is it a feasible idea for me to install Redhat Linux 7.1 on this laptop? Are there any alternatives, any suggestions?
