linux distro for really old laptop
 

Hello. I know that one of the main benefits of linux is that It can adapt to hardware no matter how old it is. I want to rescue a really old laptop with about 16 mb on ram, 4 gb of hd, and find out how true this is. I would like to be able to develop aplications in asm (using intel and att sintax) c language and maybe c++ if it can handle it. I was thinking in a text mode installation. Can anyone recommend me a distro for such computer?
PD. I would have to install it using a floppy drive, there´s no cd drive, or usb ports available

Nobody has ever said Linux adapts to any hardware "no matter how old it is". It generally runs better on older hardware than Windows, but there are still limits.

With 16 MB of RAM and only a floppy drive, you are not going to be able to run any modern distribution. I am not even aware of any distributions that support floppy install anymore (most don't even support floppy boot, since the 2.6.x kernel is too large anymore); it would take 100's of floppies to install even a base system.

Your best bet might be using one of the BSDs, like OpenBSD. If you have some network connectivity on this machine, you can use the single floppy installer to get the system on it. BSD also runs a bit better on really low end hardware than Linux, at least in my experience.

Debian has a four-floppy install that downloads the binaries.

Try MenuetOS - it's not a linux distro but from what i gathered you're trying to make an old laptop usable.
Maybe that will help.

Gentoo

Sound like fun. I ran Slackware and Xenix on an old IBM AT (286) with just 3 megs of RAM back in the day. Even had an early version of X-Windows running openwin. I'm sure you can probably find an old version of Linux that will work for what you want to do. Shoot, my web server runs on a 33MHZ Mac (68040) running NetBSD. It does have 128Megs of Ram though. Good luck.

Some other good alternatives might be NetBSD and DragonFly BSD. They're not Linux but you can do your c++ development and anything else you want using them.

If you have time on your hands and a standard computer it is on to take out the hard disk,
put it in the standard computer, there are adapters, and build a Cross Compiled Linux from Scratch
on it.
You will go through endless amounts of C & C++ compiling.
Only i386 machines are ruled out.
See CLFS site.

John

DSL will work (itll work w/out a HD).

hope that helps.
there is also "Peanut" linux, and my favorite (which may not work) is Mandrake 7.1 helium w/enlightenment e16 built in if you want it.

all cd's can be found in old magazines, and even bought or coppied from locals for pennies on the dollar.

i think, if i looked long enough, i can find old screenshots of my desktops.

i got mandrake to run a marilynmanson video on a 128Mghz processor (90's toshiba)..my old bosses pc. that stopped working. he gave it to me, and i wish i didnt sell it. b/c now im trying to test my networking skills

vintage computing
 

If you're into vintage computers, you might want to play with an old version of BeOS, got one sitting on the shelf that wants 32 mb ram with at least 150 mb of HD space.
Some older machines have bootable pcmcia slots, where you can boot off a CF card.
There is also an old version of Mandrake that has about the same requirements that could run off a ram drive.
What are the specs on your old laptop? I have some ancient ram here that I'd be happy to send to a new home for nothing more than postage.

Damn Small is probably your best bet, but:

http://amigolinux.org/

http://www.polypux.org/

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/...ions/baslinux/

http://www.pcpages.com/greyclinux/

http://tiny.seul.org/en/

http://www.minimalinux.org/ttylinux/

http://tinylinux.sourceforge.net/

Try out a Debian. It installs/boots off of floppy, but i'd recommend you getting hold of a network card and install the bulk of the OS via net. Personal experience is an ooold IBM Thinkpad 701C (486@50MHz, 32MB ram) running Debian Etch - including BlackBox WM and a pile of devtools. But go for the text-mode interface. GUI is no good idea. Too slow

Slackware runs nicely in this machine. I just installed it on a similar laptop a few months ago

yeeeees baby. gentoo forever! gentoo + openbox or fluxbox or another light DE!

I'd go with Damn Small Linux and experiment with the boot cheat codes to find the combination that gives you the best performance for your machine.

First, there's the lowram cheat code that uses a minimal GUI.

If you don't need a GUI, use the dsl 2 cheat code to boot into text-only mode.

There are lots more cheat codes for turning stuff off at boot. http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/i...hp/Cheat_Codes

The super-low-ram boot option they recommend is:

dsl 1 vga=normal atapicd noideraid nosound noapic noacpi acpi=off noscsi noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce

I got slackware to run on a HP Omnibook 800 with smaller specs than yours

http://tuxmobil.org/hp800e.html

Yup. I believe Slack will win the limbo-contest, installing on ultralow-spec-machines. The trouble - IMHO - with Slack is that it's not exactly easy to manage. Depending on DeepSeaNautilus' mileage, this may be an issue to consider.
Of course, venturing into 'specialty-installs' is asking for trouble in the first place :)

learning
 

The best way to learn is asking for trouble, so I will install Slack :)

same here, slackware will run nice. I used to have slackware installed on a laptop with similiar specs. But I believe Damn Small will do the job as well.

What Slackware version are you reffering to?
I was interested about floppy install a while ago and I think I seen
that only version 7 of Slackware can install from floppy.
maybe after that one can upgrade via network to newer/current slackware,
requiring it have enough disk space and Ram.

DeepSeaNautilus: Would you report back on your experience installing Slack on this thing?

Just to help other people with a similar agenda (ultralow-spec-install) in their quest for 'the right distro' :)

You're never going to get anything remotely current running on a machine like this, but if you just want some kind of Linux on it, I would go with an older version of Slackware. You may end up stuck with libc5, though. I doubt that Puppy or DSL is even going to boot in 16 MB of RAM.

Minimum requirements for Damn Small Linux:

Non-Graphical: 486dx with 8mb of Ram (16mb recommended)

With X-Window: 486dx with 16mb of Ram (24mb recommended)

Debian Sarge! Or, use DeLi Linux- based on Slackware- I have two older 16mb machines that run both. If you've got network capabilities, that is. If you don't, i think Basic Linux or Tiny Linux can run a gui environment with floppies.

try this link

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/

cheers,

Jake

I have a copy of Linux for Dummies: Second Edition, from a few years back.

(I like to use older computer books to teach myself, because they usually teach "the hard way" of doing things. Once I know how to do something "the hard way", it's much easier to improvise solutions to problems that might pop up.)

Anyhoo, it came with a copy of Red Hat Linux (I think it's version 5) that seems to meet your system's specifications, and the book has really good step-by-step installation and customization instructions.

I don`t think that it is advisable to use old un-maintained Linux distribution releases. It compromises your security if your old computer
is connected to any network.
(Unless you are offline or you do it for some museum exibition)

You need to choose what you want to do with older computer in a present day
and depending on configuration, what can be done with it and what can`t.

So I was inspired to drag this toy out of storage. It is an OmniBook 800CT F1360A, 166 MHz with 16MB RAM. It has separate floppy and separate CD drive. The bios only boots from the floppy or hard disk, so finding a way to get this up on a modern Linux distro was a bit of a search.

So I went for Debian and was able to bootstrap network install the Etch (version 4?) from floppies. I had to fiddle a bit to get the Xircom pcmcia NIC to work, but now I am web surfing with it.

Next I am going to see if I can replace the Xircom with a D-Link (DWL-G630 atheros chip) wifi adapter I have lying around. If successful I'll have an antique netbook :cool:

Where there's a linux distro, there's a way:

http://damnsmalllinux.org/486.html

You can also try Slitaz Linux it is suppose to load on computers with less than 32 Megs of ram.

according to here http://www.puppylinux.org/home/overview puppy requirs 96mb of disk space. This is a really interesting problem.

More or less off topic - but nonetheless fun
 

On the subject of small computers (in this case NOT old ones), i've got access to a Asus eeePC - the 701SD version with replaceable 8GB SSD and upgradeable RAM. And of course I had to tweak it!

So - once again - I installed Debian on the thing. With 8GB storage, a relatively modern CPU (Celeron@600MHz) and lots of RAM, it was no problem at all. Enter KDE, Compiz 3D-desktop and a pile of different goodies.

You'll be tempted to think this is just a toy - priced at 200 USD it won't appeal for much more, right? A TI-89 calculator is higher priced...

But oh no :) Its miniscule size alone will draw attention to it, when casually dumped on a cafe-table downtown. Behind me, i hear a snicker from people carrying 'real laptops'. These guys are almost guaranteed to run Vista on expensive hardware, thinking the 701 is a toy - and so the scene is set.
Pop up the lid, fire it up, listen. Behind me, the snickering changes tone; 'Huh - what's that?' Hook onto the cafe hotspot. Grab a local news site, twirl the desktop-cube. Pop up another site. Twirl. IRC. Twirl. Check my mail. Twirl - back to news. Read, enjoy my coffee, listening to the background noise which follows exploding menus, windows folding in funny ways and whatever i choose to do.
Great fun! I do this partly to grab my mail, partly to have fun.

Sometimes people come up to me and ask about the 701. Then we'll have a nice chat about the evolution of computers. I try to casually mention the 'Ubuntu' brand name - to point my newfound friends in a productive direction. We have some more coffee.

Never any mention of 'toy'...