Linux on a 486 laptop with 8MB RAM?

[savage]

Hi guys, I'd like to get some advice.

I have a top-of-the-range Dell laptop, a 486 running at 66Mhz (I think), with 8MB RAM.

It previously had Win3.1, but my use for it was simply coding at the workplace (we run machines, a lot of sitting around until they go wrong), I needed long filenames, so fired Win95 on it.

While it does the job I need it for, I've been thinking about trying to get Linux on the old dog.

I've heard that playing with stuff like Damn Small Linux is great for learning, which is my purpose for this.

The laptop doesn't have CD-ROM, only floppy, and uses a PCMCIA network card, which I would need to get working. I think the hard disk is like 200-300MB, I can't fit much software around Win95.

What distro's would you suggest trying? Is the machine powerful enough to run Linux?

Ideally I want to run a small lightweight DE, have open office, and a decent text editor.

I suspect the floppy disks will be an issue, but I'd love some input on this.

[Wilfred]

I would make a chroot on a fast machine and cross-compile for a 486. Try linuxfromscratch.

[savage]

That sounds complicated, and a little over my head, which is great :D

Could you go into more detail on that? From what I gather, it's preparing a LFS build (or at least the packages) on my desktop, then transferring it over to the laptop?

I'm just having a read of their site, it looks exactly like what I want to do.

[pete_1967]

Slackware runs on 486 so you may want to try that, or Damn Small Linux if you prefer something else.

[Wilfred]

Debian also still supports 80486 cpu's but not 8 MiB of RAM.
But yes, you just compile the stuff on your fast computer using -march=486 and then you copy it to the 486. Or you could try and find the last version of redhat which still supported the 486.

[Dan]

Investigate Puppy Linux. Not sure it'll do a 486 out of the box, but it might. Just put it on a P2 with 64megs yesterday by installing to HDD in a bigger machine, then moving the drive.

[savage]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm looking at LFS because it does look like a huge learning experience, and one that can only be beneficial to my Linux knowledge.

It does look like it will take a small decade to complete a working distro though, and have been looking at DSL and Puppy.

My only query with all is, they seem to be ISO images, and even LFS, once complete, will just give me a pre-setup file system to boot.

How would I go about getting these on the laptop, like in DOS I know I could just format a new partition, slap the files in, make it bootable, and off it goes, but I'd need a bootable floppy disk with the relevant tools.

Any ideas on how to get one of these distro's onto a laptop with only floppy?

[Dan]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I'm looking at LFS because it does look like a huge learning experience, and one that can only be beneficial to my Linux knowledge.

It does look like it will take a small decade to complete a working distro though, and have been looking at DSL and Puppy.

My only query with all is, they seem to be ISO images, and even LFS, once complete, will just give me a pre-setup file system to boot.

How would I go about getting these on the laptop, like in DOS I know I could just format a new partition, slap the files in, make it bootable, and off it goes, but I'd need a bootable floppy disk with the relevant tools.

Any ideas on how to get one of these distro's onto a laptop with only floppy?
Morning, Savage.

Note my earlier post. This nasty little IBM didn't have a floppy or a cdrom, so I pulled the drive, installed it in another machine, installed the OS, then swapped the drives again. Worked like a charm.

[savage]

Hi Dan, this sucker's a laptop, I don't have a problem with ripping it open, but I don't have any way of connecting it to my PC.

Since I installed Win95 off floppies, I'm quite happy copying stuff manually from them, I can just stick a film on and flip disks, it's just the initial boot, partition and format the hard disk etc. that I'm not sure how to approach.

Ideally what I'd like to be able to do, is with the completed LFS partition, compress it into 1.38MB tar files, and then drop it onto the laptop from a boot disk, not sure if this is possible, can 'dd' take parts of a file system, put it through tar and then uncompress into one (working) partition at the other end?

Thanks

[RupertPupkin]

I'd go with Slackware. There is a procedure (Etherboot) for installing off a boot floppy with just a working network card and a reachable machine on your local LAN with the install media mounted. Read more about it here (http://slackware.mirrors.tds.net/pub/slackware/slackware-current/usb-and-pxe-installers/etherboot/ETHERBOOT_README.TXT) .

Back in the 2.4.x kernel days it used to be easy to boot off a floppy for a net install. I did that with Red Hat 5.2 on an old laptop without a CD drive back then. But the newer 2.6.x kernels won't fit on a 1.44MB floppy any more, so you need Etherboot.

[Thetargos]

Aye, I'm Rupert. You will need to stick to a 2.4-based net-install disk (to fit on the floppy) or some such.

Rupert, Red Hat 5.2 had a 2.0 (stable) kernel and a 2.1 (development) kernel, IIRC.

[quacked]

I have an old version that fits the bill ,,, Pico bsd,,, a one floppy version of linux that will fit onto a floppy drive, there is also another version that compressed , is about 4-5 mb,

Another is trinux, the 4-5 mb tar,gz file,,

if you'd like I can provide a link to them,,, ? I have them in a folder and will set it up on the website,,, for download,,,

[quacked]

http://people.freebsd.org/~picobsd/old/picobsd.html

Better Yet ,,, this link tells more, !!

and Here on this page is trinux and more info

http://packetstormsecurity.org/linux/trinux/

[quik69]

ever think of running an older version of slackware. i remember running slack95 with afterstep as a wm and it ran pretty sweet and still looked better than win95 or even XP for that matter. all the packages used to be available in some sort of format that fit on 1.44mb floppy.

might be a challenge to find this and i'd recommend running from behind a firewall for sure, but with old slack you will learn the unix way for sure.

[TheLK]

goood luck

[RupertPupkin]

Rupert, Red Hat 5.2 had a 2.0 (stable) kernel and a 2.1 (development) kernel, IIRC.
Yes, it did. I wasn't implying it used 2.4, if that's what you thought. Just that up through 2.4 installing off a floppy was easy.

However...if you happen to have a 2.88MB floppy drive, as I do, then you can fit a 2.6 kernel on a floppy. Most BIOSes still support hooking up a 2.88MB floppy drive to the floppy port. Mine does. The trick is getting one of those 2.88MB drives. I got mine off ebay, it's come in handy. :)

[savage]

Hi guys, thanks for all the suggestions. I've just been doing a little reading on it all.

@quacked:

Trinux doesn't come with mouse support for X, although the only thing I use the laptop is coding, so this could still work well with just a keyboard, but I'll investigate the other options further first.

PicoBSD looks promising, I'll give that a go, as well as Slackware.

@RupertPupkin:

I've just been reading that text file associated with etherboot, and that does look promising, the network card is PCMCIA, which it mentions it has BETA support for, with any luck, my card will work.

I'm still quite partial to the LFS route, it's just screaming "think about what you'll learn", despite the huge amount of effort involved with it.

I do have an NFS file server, and am hoping that either of the above will provide me with a way to transfer an LFS partition to the laptop, which would be ideal.

@quik69:

I hadn't considered older versions, and again that is also another option I will look into.

I'm just reading about the options at the moment and will take a step forward into trying something at the weekend.

Thanks again.