I have an old Laptop with a 100Mhz Processor and 16MB of ram. It has an 800MB HDD and I am looking to put linux on it. Can someone suggest a build of linux that would work best with it and would be the easiest to use on it. Thanks all.

P.S. its a Toshiba satellite 205cds

Please see my response to this question in the linux general forum. Not to sound like a moderator, but I would try to pick the best forum and only post your question once. Some of the mods get a bit, err.... peeved if you post the same question in multiple forums.

just an FYI.

slight

i have a 1555cds 32mb ram and 380mhz processor. I would say go with one of the majors like mandrake (my fave) or red hat. just go with something 7.x or probably earlier. try going to one of the laptop linux sites like: http://www. linux-on-laptops .com/

they have your model there i believe.

dave

That 16mb of ram is going to be a problem with the installation routines of just about any modern distro I can think of. They like to create ramdisks that are about twice that size. Don't be surprised if the normal installation-from-boot-cd craps out, you'll need to use an alternate method like boot from floppy and install over nfs. I recommend Slackware for this, there is a lowmem boot from floppy installation that just may be the ticket.

Once you get by the installation, you should be able to run linux pretty well. I'm running slackware 8.0 on an old compaq contura 400cx with a dx2/40 proc and 28mb of ram (I was able to find a 24mb ram upgrade for it on Ebay for $50 and a bios upgrade on compaq(hp's) website which was necessary for it to recognize the ram upgrade fully. Although it's only 8-bit color on an 8-inch screen, X runs pretty well.

I've put NetBSD on a laptop with less than 8 mb or RAM with a little tinkering.