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Old 03-15-2005, 10:33 PM   #1
mhelliwell
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Older, smaller versions of distros? Where to find?


I was loading RedHat Linux 8.0 on my cranky pc, and eveything seemed ok, then it said I didn't have enough RAM. Rather than go buy more, I am wondering if there is a site for older, lamer Linuxes for older, lamer PC's, so it would suit my PC nicely. Thanks
 
Old 03-16-2005, 12:41 AM   #2
KEJP
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Don't know about other distro's I'm afraid, but older Red Hat releases - right the way back to 1.0 - are available from http://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/
 
Old 03-16-2005, 08:12 AM   #3
student04
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There's Damn Small Linux which runs on crappy computers as well as new ones. It's 50MB in size and has some pretty neat stuff.
 
Old 03-16-2005, 08:54 AM   #4
overlord73
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yeah, I would not look for older, but rather for smaller distros! ..or use faster x-manager
 
Old 03-16-2005, 09:50 AM   #5
mhelliwell
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I am considering DSL but a lot of the apps I want only run on KDE But how do I geta boot floppy for DSL? There are no floppy images on the CD.
(That I can see)

Last edited by mhelliwell; 03-16-2005 at 09:57 AM.
 
Old 03-16-2005, 11:05 AM   #6
student04
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KDE is a large set of applications and requires quite an amount of memory to run. If you need to use KDE, then you should probably increase the amount of RAM in your system... old RAM will be hard to come by for old motherboards, so you're probably best off using a different computer OR not using KDE (i.e. a different window manager, such as fluxbox, etc). If it's absolutely a must, then maybe you could increase the amount of swap space so that you can use the disk (note that everything will run MUCH slower).

As for making a boot floppy, the information is contained in the DSL FAQs:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/faq.html#floppy

rawrite you can find via Google, and runs in windows (obviously).
I'll provide the link anyway...
http://uranus.it.swin.edu.au/~jn/linux/rawwrite.htm

You can download the .img file from an ftp server listed on the DSL website download page. Just download those two, and stick in a floppy, use rawrite to create the boot floppy and you're done!
 
Old 03-16-2005, 01:17 PM   #7
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Most distros continue to make their old versions available, and likewise many mirrors do too. As an aside, KDE uses a lot of resources, so if your PC is "old and lame" it probably wouldn't be a good fit. It might be worth a try, but don't set your expectations too high. Good luck with it -- J.W.
 
Old 03-16-2005, 03:16 PM   #8
halo14
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As everyone has already said..KDE (and KDE apps) require a lot of RAM..so a small distro using KDE is still going to be using the RAM that KDE requires

VectorLinux is nice.. doesn't include KDE (unless you use the SOHO version) but defaults with your choice of IceWM, Fluxbox+ROX Filer, or XFCE... light and fast... it's a trimmed down version of slackware... with a program called vecpkg for installing quite a few additional apps easily.. and it's based on slackware 10.0 so any packages for slack 10.0 will work fine on it something to check out...

maybe you could post the actual system specs to help better suggest an appropriate solution...
 
Old 03-19-2005, 11:45 AM   #9
mhelliwell
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Do you think it is a good idea to use VectorLinux and strip it down of the apps I don't need, like FireFox, etc. (I have no IP connection) And XCDRoast, the burning agent, plus a bunch more. That might get it down a bit. BUT I must have a boot floppy for my PC. I don't see instructions on the page, anyone know how to make it?
 
Old 03-19-2005, 12:41 PM   #10
student04
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Quote:
Originally posted by mhelliwell
Do you think it is a good idea to use VectorLinux and strip it down of the apps I don't need, like FireFox, etc. (I have no IP connection) And XCDRoast, the burning agent, plus a bunch more. That might get it down a bit. BUT I must have a boot floppy for my PC. I don't see instructions on the page, anyone know how to make it?
Are you looking for a boot floppy for Vector Linux now? Because I already gave you the instructions to make a boot floppy for Damn Small Linux. If so... then here's how you do it for VectorLinux:

You have to use VL version 3.2 because anything newer has kernel images that are too large to fit on a floppy
Quote:
From the VL FAQ
4.3 Floppy Install
==================

Previous VL versions include the possibility to boot from a floppy disk and install the system from the files in a CDRom or a folder in the hard disk, unfortuantely the size of the new kernel is too big to fit in a floppy and therefore this option is not available in VL 4.3. A workaround is being evaluated, but we canīt assure it will be done.
Soooo, I did a little searching in the ftp download tree in ibiblio.org and found that version 3.2 has instructions for a floppy install: README (read that). In my previous post I supplied instructions for creating a floppy from a .img file.

Here is the site for VL 3.2: ftp://ftp.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/dist.../veclinux-3.2/
Browse to the directory "disks" and I'm guessing you'll want to use the "i386ide.img" image. Just use rawrite to create the image, and you're done.

Last edited by student04; 03-19-2005 at 12:42 PM.
 
Old 03-20-2005, 06:51 PM   #11
mhelliwell
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Sorry studento4, but Damn Small linux was too hard for me to make one in. I am considering gettign a guru from my local LUG to make it. Sorry 'bout that.
 
  


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