I have an old Linux 286 with Windows 3.1, and no cdrom drive,
only a floppy drive & no internet connection. (Well, maybe dial-up).
Can I make a floppy on another Linux machine, and use it to install
Linux on the 286? Does someone out there know how to do this?
I hate to throw the machine away if there's any chance that I could
run some version of Linux on it.
Thanks!

Well, as far as I know, Linux kernel does *NOT* support Intel 286 processors..

Yes, people has said how Linux is a lot less resource-intensive than Windoz, which is true. But the degree of which has been greatly exaggerate. I just installed RedHat 7.1 on my old Pentium 120 with 64mb of RAM. I have to say, it barely runs things I like to run. Swap files are constly being used, thich indicate 64mb is not quite enough.

Things that really slow the system down are: Netscape and the Java virtual machine (java v1.3).

(I am using Netscape 4.x, tried mozilla and other mozilla-related browser. All of them are slow. What suprised me is that Opera, which has significant performance gain over Netscape on my Win32 platform, is quite slow on my Linux box as well)

I would say Pentium 150MHZ/64mb/1.8gb HD is the realistic minimium for what I considered as "desktop replacement" (Trust me, I tried to installed it on my 1.2gb HD, I had such trouble that i end up spread my linux on 2 HDs).

If you are not planning on run X, then you can try your luck with lower hardware requirement.

good luck

get the linux floppy from

http://www.toms.net/rb/

and see if it will boot

This distro runs on the floppy and a little ram.

This should tell you if it will work.

There are a lot of updates for win 3.1 now for getting on the internet and related stuff, etc..

you might want to use it for that.

I'm pretty sure that Linux requires i386 or higher.

Linux does require a 386 or higher processor, because it won't run on less than a 32-bit CPU, which the 80286 is not.

http://elks.sourceforge.net/

But down´t expect too mutch... it will boot, but you can´t do very mutch except some shell-skripts.

Try to get a old Mainboard ( 386 or 486 ) for a few bugs ( i think it will fit in your old PC-Case ) with 8 MB of RAM and get muLinux:

http://sunsite.dk/mulinux/

Good Luck

just to clarify things, linux was originally written on a 386 in 1991 - back then 286's were already getting old, and the main kernel tree never had any backported code to support 286. there were some people who backported it to 286 back in the early 90's, but never really released it as a distro. you'd have a hard time finding any copies of it nowadays, as it's not really compatible with modern linux code due to the 32bit requirement.

linux can be configured to use much less memory and resources than any ms operating system, but that takes a lot of work and configuration. it's not likely that you'll be able to find much for the 286.

is a math coprocessor (which is the caveat to running Linux on a 486) so you'd probably have to do something about that as well.

Could Someone PPPEEAAALLSSEE Tell me how to get linux running on a 286 even if i have to recompile the kernel

You have to rewrite the kernel and change the 32bit expectations to 16bit. You have to rewrite all apps you need to be 16bit rather than 32bit.
Why do you "need" to run it on a 286?

Hi,

You CAN NOT run Linux on a 286 CPU, no chance.
You can do the following things:

- If you have a "Standart" 80286 in a Industry Standard
PC-Case, you can remove to 286-Mainboard and replace
it with a 386/486 or even 586 Mainboard. You can use
all you Periphery and internal Expansion-Cards.

- Try to Install ELKS-Linux. There is a ELKS Disto at:
http://rainbow.cs.unipi.gr/linux-808...2/12/2207.html
Make the ELKS-Floppy as explained and check it out.
ELKS is early BETA, so dont expect too match.

- Try MINUX 2.0. This is mutch, mutch better then ELKS.
It has a working TCP/IP and Ethernet Driver, Ansi C
Compiler, allmost all Linux commandline Tools, and a
very good Documentation. If you realy want too learn
how to handle a Unix System, this is the right thing.

No offense here but is there some special reason you need it to work on a 286? You could pick up a Pentium II computer on ebay for $50 or less. If you really wanna go cheap I have seen Pentium systems for around $10.

How are you accessing the internet? I don't know of any computers before the 486 that could run a good web browser.

Minimum specs are a 386. You might want to try something like FreeDOS.

ive used the internet for a few minutes on my 8086 toshiba laptop, using an external 33.6k modem (ran it at 9600 baud). It was painfully slow, and in fact, was so slow my ISP's server kept closing the connection because the laptop couldnt respond fast enough.

a 386sx is about the only thing that you can really do anything on the internet with. My 286 @ 12mhz takes over a minute to load a 320x260 jpeg.

if you wanna keep that 286 and use it for internet, download arachne at arachne.cz it supports html 4.0, but probably isnt useably on a 286 for browsing.

It's a museum piece. Not really usable for anything except dos.

Sorry if this sounds rude or something. I have a few 386's. They are also not usable in any way I can think of. Except for running some specific very old software.