Distro Suitable for a very old beat laptop

Onisemus · 11-20-2004, 05:48 PM

Hi, I'm a Windows user making my inroads into Linux. I use Fedora at home and know how to get around the command-line in Linux, but that's about as far as it goes. I recently got an old laptop from a friend. Here's the specs:

NEC Versa 2405CD
100 MHz Pentium
16MB RAM
Hard Drive - busted
Floppy - busted
2x or 4x CD-ROM that DOES work

So basically I have this old beast, that I can only an OS from a CD. Since there is no hard drive, it needs to run from the CD. Because there is only 16MB the OS can't take up more space than that.

With all that said, does anyone have a distro that they can recommend for me? I was searching around and the best I could find was Damn Small Linux - but I can't get it won't even boot up completely (freezes about halfway through). Any ideas or recommendations are greatly appreciated!!

ToniT · 11-21-2004, 07:59 AM

Can you get it to boot to text mode (runlevel 2).

Onisemus · 11-27-2004, 09:59 PM

i haven't been able to yet. Honestly however, I'm not quite sure how to do that. I was exploring options during the boot process, but not sure if that is what you are talking about.

I'll go do some research on it though and get back to you.

ToniT · 11-29-2004, 02:37 AM

Yes. By hiting F2 in the knoppix boot menu, you can view
the boot options aka knoppix "cheat codes". IIRC, command
"linux 2" should try to boot it only to console.

halo14 · 11-29-2004, 10:26 AM

As for booting up with DamnSmallLinux... I bet you are using .8.3 or .8.2 because I had the same problem on my old Toshiba Satellite with a200 Pentium... Try a slightly older DSL... .8.0 works great on mine... butI have 32 MB of RAM...

To getthis machine running well for as old as it is.. I recommend that you get an old notebook HD and put it in... a 2-3 GB is more tha enough... and upgrade to 64 MB RAM... with that... you could just fine on DSL... also, Feather Linux is very similar to DSL... you might want to check that out... If you do get a HD and a little more RAM... VectorLinux is super cool..

Onisemus · 01-09-2005, 07:34 PM

OK, I finally gave it a shot and I am able to get it to boot to text-only mode (runlevel 2)!

halo14 · 01-10-2005, 08:25 AM

Is it running XFree86 or Xorg?? I do't remember what it uses... However.. if it's using XFree86, do the following:

Code:

XFree86 -configure

and follow the instructions to test it, is you get a grayish background witht he "X" cursor it works, hit ctrl+alt+backspace and then copy the file to "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4"

If you are using Xorg, it's similar, using te command:

Code:

X -configure

and test in a similar fashion... let us know how that works...