*nix on a VERY old laptop

abskure · 03-18-2004, 10:47 AM

I have a very old laptop. Unsure of specs right now, but it used to run win 3.1. wouldnt take 95. so at the least, i have 30MB harddrive. Does anyone know a flavor of linux (or unix) that would run on such an old box? perhaps an older version? and where could i obtain one. I heard about a lowmem distribution of debian, but coulndt find it on debians site.

Help please

aaa · 03-18-2004, 10:54 AM

Copy a Linux bootdisk to the hd. I think you will need to take specail measures to use less than 4mb ram/386.

daWabbit · 03-19-2004, 05:48 PM

I'm currently doing Linux on an old Acer 760i, 486 lappie. I'm having problems with my usual Debian Woody (caused mostly by my lack of knowledge, apparently). As a consequence, I'm going to install Tiny Linux, which is based on Slackware 4. As it's so old, I'm planning on either an immediate upgrade or simply learning enough to make this work and going back to my beloved Woody.

I found a site in german which gives me directions for using Tiny. http://www.lineltech.de/projekt1.html

I'm hoping this will help me. In addition; I've lined up a bunch of folks who are going to apply their considerable expertise to this. I'll keep you posted. And, should you wish to contact me directly, use rabbitATotterent.com and I'll reply as fast as I can. I've been sick, so replies may be slow.

Jack

J.W. · 03-20-2004, 12:23 AM

Is it really only a 30 *Mg* HD? I'd say that memory isn't the issue, it's simple storage capacity. 30 Mg is basically zero, and I'm skeptical that you could run a system off such a tiny space. I'll defer to more knowledgable LQ'ers, but if it's honestly a 30Mg HD, I'd say there's no hope, not that I'm trying to bum you out. Like I said, I'd defer to smarter people, but I'd say you probably need a more advanced/modern machine. Just my 2 cents -- J.W.

alveric · 04-05-2004, 07:26 AM

If you are french-reader, there is which helps installing tux on a very limited machine. The HD specs are not quite explicit, but they use MCC as a distro. It is installed from a couple of floppies, so it shouldn't take much place - they're should even be enough for a swap

mjolnir · 04-05-2004, 08:15 AM

http://sourceforge.net/projects/smalllinux/

I have this one on a 386 with 8 megs of ram and I believe a 120 megabyte
hd. It comes as a two floppy bootable d/l which you can then install on the
hd.
Just noticed you said laptop. I have this distro on an old pc but you may
still be able to use it.