Installing Linux on Pentium-32MB RAM?
 

Hi guys, is it possible to install Linux without the GUI on a system with 32MB of memory? I just need it to learn and practice the commands. I tried doing this with Fedora Core 3 and I get "Not enough memory" message. Is there another distro. that would let me do this??

Thanks..

Re: Installing Linux on Pentium-32MB RAM?
 

The Linux Documentation Project has a distro on a 486 that installed with like 4mb of RAM, total > http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/4mb-Laptops.html . But if you still want a GUI, maybe Damn Small Linux will work for you as the install is only 50MB total.EDIT: You can also get the Net Install version of Debian 3.1 (Sarge) and not install X.

Hi,

There are a variety of distros that are not memory-intensive. I would try SLAX Frodo first, which is a LiveCD distro based on Slackware that comes with no GUI included, and is less than 50MB. If you want a GUI, another good LiveCD distro is Damn Small Linux, which is also less than 50MB, but includes X-windows and the fluxbox window manager. It's based on Knoppix, which is based on Debian. I've gotten it running pretty well on an old Pentium I system with similar memory capacity. See how the LiveCDs run, and then try a HDD install of Slackware or Debian.

You can get the Debian Net Install ISO from www.debian.org, and then do a minimalist install of only the packages you really need with apt-get. Slackware is also a good option, especially if you really want to learn fast. You can select only the packages you absolutely need during the install, and you have to do most of the package management yourself, which makes for an efficient system and accelerated learning.

Those are just my recommendations. You can go to www.linux.org and search for minimalist distros for more options.


--C

But, I though Damn Small was a live CD only and can not be installed on a HD. So, you are saying that I can install Damn Small Linux on this PC? I don't really care about having GUI, I just need the command line to practice.

Thanks...

Define "command line practice"

You can install DSL on a HD. In fact I managed to install it via 2 floppys on a machine with no cdrom

Thanks archdev, you are very helpful......Do you think that installing Slackware would be a good choice too??

Thanks for the help again...

Last time I checked DSL doesnt have a gcc compiler, so you wouldnt be able to install things from source. Never used SLAX frodo as was mentioned before but I would imagine it would be a similar experience to DSL. Just go for something minimal first, see if you like it and you can always add extra packages to it. The more you need to add to get it to what you want, the more you can learn.

core linux is good.