Hey everyone,

i'm trying to install Slackware 4.0 on an old machine (just so i can have a linux box to learn on), and here's the problem i have....

i start up with a boot disk, and then after it boots up ramdisk i then switch to a root disk. so far so good...i login as root, then at the prompt, and run setup, then it says "Bus error", and just keeps repeating it over and over (automatically). eventually, it will show the setup screen, but then start the "Bus error" message before i can do anything. here are the specs of this old machine....

proc: intel 486 SX
ram: 7 megs
hdd: 545.5 meg seagate (set as primary master)
cd-rom: creative labs 4x (set as secondary master)

does anyone know what's up? thanks for your time!

-Zach

Welcome to LQ, BlueYoshi.

7Mb or RAM is a little small for much, these days. And if you can, try the newer Slack distros. As for the problem, does the BIOS show up anything unusual? Which boot/root disks are you using? Have you tried DOS on this computer, did it work?