Hi

A week back, I found a 1993 compaq presario in a storage locker. I fired it up and it works fine. I wondered if I could install linux on it and set it up as a router.

It has a 486sx cpu, 16mb ram, 213mb hdd, a stiffy drive and two ISA slots - one isa is free, the other has a modem card in it - no network cards as yet - I'll try to find some old ones at the hardware recycling plant near here.

Has anyone setup a router similar to this before?

If it can be done, how do I start? (I've heard that getting isa network cards to work can be a lot of trouble)

How should I load linux onto this thing? can I attach a cd rom in the primary slave position - do these machines even work with cd roms?

This would be great if I could do it - any help would be much appreciated.

thanks ...

There is not enough RAM to boot a big Distro like RedHat or SuSE.

If you can upgarde to 64 MB RAM, I would try to boot it with RedHat Netboot floppy and install the OS from a server.

Otherwise you can have a look on debian, it's not so easy like the other, but I have nothing seen so far, you can't do with debian.
You can try it with Knoppix.

As an addendum to the above, there are floppy install images of debian available (assuming that's a 3.5" drive, not a 5.25"). Here for example:
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distrib...18/images-1.44

There's also numerous linux router projects about that are designed with older hardware in mind. Have a look here: http://www.linux.org/dist/index.html

Freesco and Coyote Linux are good - you could probably squeeze Peanut Linux on it if you're careful.

freesco....is very good....with it you wouldn't even really need that 213 Mb HD...just the floppy(stiffy drive?...lol....cool)... you could use that HD for web hosting or storing some files on...

and freesco sets up like a breeze... top notch!!


or


i bet you could get an install of slackware on it....there is a version called zipslack...made to run off a zip disk...so setting it up on 213 Mb would work...and it is slackware...rock!

thanks all .. im going to try freesco I'll get back to you when I'm further along ..