Hi all, using the same compaq presario latop that I found in the basement a few days ago (64MB ram and 10GB HDD along with intel celeron 700MHZ processor and 700MB swap partition). Just downloaded slitaz4.0 loram cdrom.iso and a made a bootable usb stick with unetbootin. I connected the stick to the laptop and made it boot from usb using plop boot manager. it showed alot of text and in the last it said kernel panic- attempted to kill init! then it showed some kernel syscall_call+0x7 or something like that and it just stayed there.It also said unable to mount slitaz4.0loram cdrom about 3 three time and then it showed the kernel panic error. Uploading the pic. Can anyone tell why this is happening and how to fix it

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I would send the presario back to the basement and experiment with Linux on more modern hardware. Since you are brand new to the forums may I suggest a user-friendly distro such as Ubuntu or Mint, on hardware that meets the specifications detailed here.

Such old system is a poor choice to attempt a plop and slitaz usb boot.

From slitaz site. "slitaz-3.0-loram-cdrom.iso [131.0M] - Loram flavor that can boot with only 16 MB and a little swap memory, but is unable to release the cdrom"

I am not sure the iso you have is a universal image that can be dd'd to a usb. Also the way old systems need to boot may require isolinux to boot.

I'd suggest you first use the cooking loram booted to a cd. Be sure you use the best quality cd and burn at the very slowest speed you can. These old cd readers were never meant to read burned cd's. I buy the black cd's. They seem to be the best on old stuff.

HEy jefro I already tried slitaz cooking loram cdrom iso its giving me the same error.. What do I do ? Can somebody please give me a solution.. @snowpine I like taking up challenging projects so I think that I'll have to see whatever way to get this thing working again. But thanks for the suggestion.

This user was able to install Debian on 200mhz and 64mb:

http://forums.debian.net/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=79525

@snowpine Thanks for the link to the debian user. I'll keep debian 6.0 iso for download tonight (its 672 MB!!!!). I've been checking the net and I came across a blog that said something about ubuntu releases. I got an idea. Will ubuntu 4.10 warty warthog (the very first version of ubuntu) or any other version of the ubuntu os or xubuntu or lubuntu run on this system? If so how will it run like fast or slow or usable? I know that warty warthog is terribly out of date but it atleast looks good. I don't really care about security on this laptop.

For Debian you want to do a server-only netinstall (not the full 672mb) as described in the thread I linked to. And you'll be using your Debian server install for very basic uses like print server, file server, torrent slave, etc. (Don't expect to be watching Youtube or playing Farmville on such ancient hardware!)

Ubuntu will not run on your antiquated hardware, as was explained to you in your other thread on that exact topic.

I just downloaded slitaz 3.0 loram cd rom iso. Burnt it into the usb using unetbootin, connected ot to my laptop and It gave me the same kernel panic - attempted to kill init! error as shown in the pic in my first thread. What can I do to get slitaz on my system since no version of ubuntu will run on it.

Hardware designed for Windows ME is obsolete in 2012. It is unlikely your computer supports USB boot. Ubuntu, SliTaz, and other modern Linux distros are simply not designed for your hardware.

It's great that you are looking for a fun & challenging Linux project, but I honestly don't understand why you have selected this particular challenge as your introduction to Linux... don't you have a more powerful computer where you can experiment with Linux without all these headaches?

I do have a computer with 4GB ram and a 3.01 GHZ processor and a 1TB HDD. But the problem is that I have really important files on that so I really don't want to mess anything up with my main PC. Anyway thanks everyone for your replies. I'll just take out the 10GB HDD and put it in a enclosure and throw that garbage on the basement or set it on fire .

VirtualBox: you can install Linux in a "virtual machine" with zero risk to your really important files (and you have a backup, right??)

http://virtualbox.org

I run into this with kernel upgrades on a newer Emachines Desktop I got out of a dumpster. I have AntiX 11 Base iso install on it. The newest kernel that boots ok is a Liqourix 2.6.38 kernel on it. Any thing newer just fails to make it to slim login screen. It is a hardware issue is my best guess. Probably a hardware issue on your end also.

The Emachine I have is Pentium 4 and ram is 1 GIG so it is not like I don't have the power to boot up something.

Slitaz can be buggy on some hardware. I have used PLOP floppy and USB 1.1 port to boot AntiX on my IBM A22M laptop on pendrive.
http://antix.freeforums.org/post20495.html#p20495

If you threw in 2 128MB sticks in that compaq. It would run AntiX just fine. 64MB will just give you cli apps like links2 browser and moc and mc.

There is two loram iso's. You need the one that is made for the least amount of ram.

You also need to tell us that you burned it at the slowest rate and are using a high quality disk.

The error may be that you don't have enough ram. Might be able to recover some in bios settings.

64MB RAM?
It seems people install www.TinyCoreLinux.net on such low RAM PCs.
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index....html#msg72195
Dont install/use RAM eating programs like GNOME etc. but choose carefully a very basic system with only the necessary modules.
I would personally start it with TinyCoreLinux in text modus.
And install modules after each ones (Midnight commander, links.. ONLY what is required for your activity target) and see when its too much for the machine.

@ floppy_stuttgart- oh, no, not tinycore again. Covered in the previous thread by saransaleen-

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...system-946400/

@ snowpine- yes, hardware that old isnt really that great to run linux with...but the main problem the OP is having is RAM, not age.

I've run fairly new distros on machines just as old as that and no real problems. Just the machines I did it with had 256MB or more (well, a bit less than 256MB because of shared video RAM).

Why bother pulling the 10GB HDD?

You can get USB flash drives that arent much if any slower and just as big for $15 US or less.

loram-slitaz-cdrom is a pain it the butt in many ways, and I still think that antix is a better choice...it might actually run.