linux on 386-DX laptop
 

Hi,
I wonder if it is possible to install Linux on 386-DX Laptop.
Whitch distro could possibly work? :confused:
I also have an old 200Mhz Pc with a 2Gb HD. Is it possible to use kde or gnome on sutch an old pc? If yes, whitch distro whould be good for it.

I hope that someone will poste an answer.
Thanks, and bye :newbie:

<standard>Use the search function.</standard>

But yes and yes.

You can try MuLinux and I prefer BasicLinux - it's not quite the real deal, as it uses busybox, but it's pretty cool. And I even managed to get an old slow X on my 486SX (not much difference) for the novelty of it.

200 MHz and 2 gigs should be no problem - might have to use an old version of KDE or Gnome or go with a lighter window manager. Maybe try Vector for that.

There are a lot of small-distro options - look around and you'll find more than I can tell you about.

First of all, thanks for your reply.
I have allready tried muLinux, but I dind't manage to install it. But I'm gonna try BasicLinux (What is busybox).

Do you think that the new Debian could work on the 200Hhz Pc.
cya

No problem. Yeah, MuLinux sort of installed for me but never seem to work quite right.

With Basic you need a DOS partition to start with, though - I should have mentioned that first. Then you can either boot it from DOS or switch it to boot by itself. Or at least, that's what I did. Then you can delete the DOS if you want.

Busybox is sort of like a bunch of utilities in one, but each is less powerful than the main version. It's used to pack a lot of potential into a small space - things are just symlinks to the one "busybox" executable. I think. *g* Like instead of 'less' or 'grep' or whatever, you get busybox acting *as* less through the link.

I wouldn't have thought so, but I saw orange400 had gotten Debian on a 386, himself. I don't know how you manage that - select very very minimal install versions or something? But anyway, I think it could work.

I want to try Debian myself sometime.

and what would you use for the 200Mhz pcs

Well, somebody could give you better answers for that than me. I have a P100 I stuck Vector in - pretty sweet but it, me, and my equipment didn't get along too well. Still, it might be great for you. And I may give it another try. But others have probably installed stuff like Slack itself (Vector's just a Slack variant) in a machine like yours. What I'm trying to say is Vec would probably work for you, but you might be able to do better. What's in the P100 now is CORE but, while I like it in a perverse sense, I'm not sure I'd recommend it to *anybody*.

thanks, I^ll write back when i havesome more time
cu

Two important keywords here: MEMORY and PROCESSOR SPEED.
Now, and average 200 MHz mazhine probably has 32 mb or even 64 mb of RAM. Such a machine would be too slow to install something nice like the latest SuSE or redhat (if you want to run KDE that is).

My advice is: Install whatever can fit on a 2 GB and simply use WIndowMaker. Windowmaker is a nice lightweight window manager that is powerful enough, and graphical enough to suit your needs on a slow (200 Mhz) machine. IU run it on an old 300 MHz laptop and it works OK.
KDE 3.0 and Gnome 2.0 would require a nmore powerful machine.

So bottom line is: Try ANY distro that will fit on your 2 GB drive, but use WindowMaker as your window manager :)

thanks, I'm gonna try
If I'm successful, Im gonna post it

I've heard some places (OK the kde website may be a bit biased) that the latest 3.1 is quite good on older hardware. Just remember to switch off all the wizzy bits. Otherwise windowmaker I like. Its what I used before the eye candy in gnome got me. Note that when window maker (or some other window manager apart from gnome/kde) is trying to load a gnome or kde app, it will take a fair bit longer to load it than if you were already in kde/gnome.

You may want to head over to www.tldp.org and take a look at the how-tos there for your 386. There is one on installing to a 4mb computer which i think would generally be useful for any old machine, whether it has only 4 megs or not.

Just go for slack if i were you. The initial install can be done off of a floppy to get yourself a perfectly good command line system. Then you can install other packages later either over a network or from a cdrom (you could just do cd rom route if the box has a cd drive but you may need to use a boot disk).

HTH

Alex

Hey,
I have now installed Debian 3.0 on the non-laptop pc...
I'm still having some probs with XFree86 , but Ihope that someone can help me.
I've given up to install Linux o the laptop, because I think that the HD is damaged.
Thanks for all your help.