Need help with distro for "non pae" processor support
 

I've got a pair of old IBM x40 10" laptops/netbooks whatever you wanna call them but I've been having a heckuva time finding a lightweight but supported Linux OS to install on them. Seems like every one I try gives me some error having to do with non-pae processor or something.

These little laptops are old and slow with Pentium "M" 1200mhz processors and 512mb ram so I was hoping you folks could help me find a suitable operating system to install other than non supported OS like puppy and DSL....I need something that is current and won't be too fussy.

What is the deal with non-pae?? I don't understand...

Can you help?

antix, Debian and Slackware all have kernels with non-PAE option.

I can't seem to get antix to run live on them for some reason. I've also tried a slackware derivative and Its got the mnessage about non-pae too. Now I haven't tried the real Slackware but its too confusing for me so I shy away.

You might reconsider your conception that Slackware is confusing. Other than that it does not offer to partition your hard drive automatically, installing it is fairly straightforward and the end result is a complete install with a full complement of KDE applications and a complete development environment.

Several years ago, I did a series of blog posts on installing Slackware. It might help you out. This is a link to the last post in the series; it includes pointers to the earlier posts.

@Indy - sometimes some hardware need a boot option set to boot antix. If you like, I can try and help you out if you post some more info about the error, or, and maybe a better option, would be to post in the antix.freeforums.org. The guy that wrote the live boot scripts monitors the forum quite often. We've got antix running on a whole ranges of IBM thinkpad hardware and a whole mess of netbooks as well.

# apt-get install linux-image-486

for debian. Although getting to that point might be easier said than done. You can setup the harddrive on other hardware with a pae cpu. Or install linux in linux if you can boot linux on the machine by other means. CD, USB, whatever works.

http://www.debian.org/releases/stabl...apds03.html.en

Easier said than done, but not a completely impossible task.

I think Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE) has a non-PAE by default version:
http://www.linuxmint.com/rel_debian.php
I thought Debian themselves had one but LMDE with LXDE, XFCE or a window manager (one of the 'boxes perhaps) might be OK?

In Debian there's an option during installation to install a non-pae kernel

i have the same laptop
 

Crunchbang Linux is the most efficient distro I have come across. They have a non-pae download
It is light - 75megs of ram used after boot - fast - based on Debian