i acquired an old laptop that only has a floppy drive, and was wondering if i would be able to put some form of linux on it. it has maybe around 600mb of space, so i know i would have to take off most of the addons like open office. but the 0ther problem is that how do i get linux on there without hundreds of floppys? i will look later to determine exactly what ports it has, but is there a way to do this? thanks! -tnf

You need to post the specs to get a decent reply as to which version of Linux might work. Getting Linux on a laptop like that might be a problem unless you have some form of USB CD-ROM or a distro that can install from a net or web connection...

Only has a 600MB Hard Drive??? It must be a terribly old machine. There is a distro called DamnedSmallLinux that comes on a credit-card sized CD-ROM. It may be possible to get that onto a Zip drive or something that can be in-turn installed to the hard drive...

Probably the easiest way to get an install going would be to pull the HD out and install onto the drive using a machine with some method of connecting to the outside world (CD drive, network connection, etc) that's faster and less unwieldy than floppies. That's what I've traditionally done with externally challenged old notebooks.

As JaseP mentioned, however, you'll need to post up some more specs -- if the laptop's as old as I think it is, it may not have a USB port. Your best bet (provided you can't install on another computer) may end up being a null modem cable installation (connecting a port on your laptop with a port on another computer), which involves DOS, extra cables, pain, and is not for the faint of heart, though I'm sure that many hard-core Linux folks would scoff at that.

Alternately, if you don't have another computer handy, you could try getting a network PCMCIA card (based on your laptop's probable age, most likely a non-Cardbus card) working with a boot disk and install over a network connection. Most major distributions, if I remember correctly, will handle these types of installations.

There are several fairly full-featured floppy-based distributions, but it sounds like you're looking for something a bit bigger -- so, yes, check out your options with available ports, and let us know. Chances are, with a little help, you could have a fairly full-featured Linux on your machine pretty quickly.

Good luck!

Phil

well i reasearched this laptop, and i couldnt find much on it (toshiba t3400ct) it gets worse, it only has a 120 mb harddrive and its running windows 95 (i guess a small version) and word 6.0. i thought about getting a pcima(it has one of those, along with printer, serial, and one other one i dont know what it is) network card, but i dont think it can even surf the net (if it has ie or not). i also think it is a x86, maybe 3 or 4. what are my options reguarding damnsmall linux and installing it through floppys or through a PCIMA network card? also, is there a way to network boot? thanks! -tnf

First off: good job on getting all the info.

Next: Well -- there are Linux distributions that are plenty small enough to fit onto 120 megs -- there are a number that fit onto a single floppy. However, if what you're looking for is a fully-featured, relatively fast GUI, and Win95 is already working on your computer -- I'd go for it, especially if you really only have 120 megs (I'm not even sure how they could fit W95 on there with anything else -- go figure). If you really do wanna go Linux, though, let me know, and there are lots of distros that might suit your needs.

<waits for stones to stop flying>

Good luck!
Phil

im at school now, but i am really surprised at how win 95 is on a 120 mb hard drive, espically with a little over 40 mb left. all i really want to do is get linux working on it, and DSL is looking about the best bet now, but i dont have a cd to install it with. so far i think my options are a) use enough floppies to copy the DSL installer onto, b) find a cd drive that uses the floppy connection, serial port, docking port, or printer port and c) get a PCIMA network card working on it and do it over the network.

i have almost as many setbacks as ideas.
1. does DSL come on disks so that i can put the first one in, and it will boot it and just continue to ask for the other disks (i am willing to do this, even if it takes hours.)
2. the PCIMA network card might or might not work without win 95, even linux, and besides i do not know how to do a network install.
3. what program would i use to partition the disk? would the one on the windows start up disk work?
4. i dont think any cd drive exist for the ways that i mentioned.

So, after writing this essay, i have concluded that:
1. the most realistic way is to install linux over a set of floppys (DSL if possible)
2. find a program to partition the drive.

Now, i have a couple of questions.
pculliton: what is the linux that can fit onto a disk? i really only want linux, a word processor, and the internet on it, and maybe a text IM program. and, how would i install all these? im a true noobie, and could use all the help i could get! thanks everyone! -tnf

yo Phil

thanks for being supportive! ive been knocked around a bit by the technocrats

I'm trying to do pretty much exactly the same thing as buddy, I'm trying to turn a Toshiba Satellite 220CDS laptop into a lean mean internet/mail/word processing machine. (Pentium 1 133, 32Mb RAM, 2gig HD)

This machine runs Win98SE well. Ive installed Libranet 2.7, which works, but it eats the entire hard disk, and it's (of course) sluggish esp. opening apps. I've been told I'll need to compile my own kernel to get what I'm looking for, but being a complete newb, that just isn't possible (yet)

Where should I start? Could I pare down the current kernel, get rid of Gnome and go to XFce? Start over completely? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers Kirk

Hey there, Sapsucker -- glad I can help. While paring down your kernel and switching Gnome for XFce would be an excellent start -- and it's where I started -- I found that other distros simply did it better than the big boys. I'll talk about those other distros, as installing a new Linux can be much less painful than making a lot of major changes to a pre-built distribution (dependencies? ouch). If you're still thinking of going the tweaking route after you read this (and/or after trying some of it), throw another post up to let me know and we'll start skipping down optimization lane. :-)

There are a number of options that should fit your needs. In terms of old machines I've got a P120/16M/2Gig and a P166/64M/4Gig, both Toshiba Librettos. I use the P166 as a portable development unit (as a C++/Perl/Lisp guy this actually works much better than you might expect), but I use the P120 as an internet/mail/script-hacking machine, and I've had some interesting experiences in getting Linux onto it.

Currently, the P120 is running a stock slackware kernel (base.i), along with my nice little customized slack distro, LilSlack (although, to be honest, I think just about everyone has their own custom slack distro ;-) ). I've removed most of the big stuff and slapped it all onto an installable CD. (I'll talk about what I did to get this distro running well first, and then I'll go on to my other suggestions.)

First, -- as suggested to you -- I popped out Gnome and KDE, and replaced them with fluxbox, which is a very nice DE in its own right. Very slick and fast.

Next, I removed Mozilla, and replaced it with Firefox, which is pretty darned fast. Mozilla took approximately forty-five years just to START on my machine -- your mileage may vary, but I would expect about the same. Firefox takes a few seconds, but is very speedy thereafter. If you're super-hardcore, and don't mind some sites being difficult to access, you could also use Dillo, which is blindingly fast.

Now, I don't know about you, but I generally don't do much serious graphics work (or anything graphically intensive, for that matter) on machines that are old enough to be watching violent Saturday morning cartoons. Therefore, I remove most of the media and multimedia software in the distro, also the scanning software. I leave a movie player in so that I can watch Freedom Downtime at a horrific framerate and snicker about what a cool guy I am.

Then, I lose the X games, and some X applications that I know I don't need. I keep pretty much everything else -- the base tree, the development (minus Java -- shudder) and libraries tree (I HATE dependencies), the network tree, and of course the X and X application trees, less the superfluous crap.

Finally, I make it all into a bootable ISO and let fly. You could get the same results installing from a full set of packages, and simply pulling out the stuff you don't need, but I really like work. As I mention later, I'm a masochist when it comes to speed. :-)

All in all, LilSlack hits just over a gigabyte, with the Linux source installed, and about 850M without, which should leave plenty of working room on your 2gig drive -- which is actually pretty important speed-wise. It runs slick and very VERY fast, and I love it to bits. Apps start quickly, everything runs well, I have no dependency issues, and with a little tweaking, it has the potential to be even faster. Ooooooh.... nice. :-)

Fluffy stuff aside, it took me a LONG time to figure out that slack was the way to go. I'd always used VectorLinux (a professionally-packaged Slackware distro) for my old laptops, because it was fairly fast and pretty good at being install-and-go. VectorLinux 4.0 (the newest release) is not quite so easy, and is a bit more bloated than its leaner older brothers, so I decided to move on and try other things.

DamnSmallLinux, a Knoppix distro that runs fluxbox instead of KDE, was nice, easy to install, VERY fast, and was, as you might imagine, designed to be install-and-go. It also has NO development software included (the price of weighing in at a little under sixty megs), and was therefore too big a pain in the ass to bother keeping on the machine, if you want that sort of thing, which I did. If you don't need that stuff -- well, this might be exactly what you're looking for, and the download is quick as well!

Feather, another Knoppix distro, is equally fabulous, a bit more fleshy, and generally more robust feeling. It's still faster than most distros I've tried (only losing out to Mr. Speed -- DamnSmallLinux), but it again lacked development software, and therefore was out the door. Even if you don't actively develop -- it can be VERY useful to have GCC and its tiny minions of doom on your system, as you probably know.

Well -- I had installed and removed three distros from my laptop by this point, and I was feeling frustrated with the pre-packaged fellas (I dismissed RedHat and Mandrake out of hand, before moving on). I decided to check out the build-from-source route. (Yeah, I was a fool to attempt such a thing with 16 megs of RAM, but a) I love to watch things build! little scrolly messages... and b) I'm a masochist when it comes to faster software.)

I tried both SourceMage and Gentoo tuxes, and found that both were excellent distros. SourceMage was a bit more my style, being of lighter weight, slimmer physique, and easier-to-use install scripts. It was a joy to 'cast' a 'spell' and know that dependencies were taken care of. Ultimately, it was waiting for everything to build that got me. I might try it again on my P120, when I'm fifty and the kid is in college and I'm supremely wealthy. For now, though, SourceMage IS the distro sitting on my desktop, so I guess that says something about it. Good stuff, if you've got the time. (As a side note -- SourceMage builds your kernel for you based on options you've chosen, which will probably be a bit easier than messing with your current kernel, and just as fast, if not faster.)

Next up came two -- let's call them "weirdo" distros. Peanut and PHLAK. They were all right. Wouldn't keep either one on any of my machines. Peanut seemed fine -- but I hated their website, and somehow that made it harder for me to use the distro. And I say I'm not an aesthete. Shrug. PHLAK was fun to load up, but ultimately a letdown. Bloated and full of GUI tools. "What self-respecting hacker uses a GUI?" I shouted, before wiping my hard drive and crying myself to sleep. A topic for another post, though. Onward....

I also tried a couple of non-Linux OSes. Though I would dearly love to try BeOS on my laptop, I didn't have the intestinal fortitude to track it down and cuddle it onto my hard drive. Sniff. Would have been too hard -- like watching "Old Yeller" after a funeral. :-(

QNX was next on my list, and performed well -- unfortunately, hardware support for laptop-style devices seemed rather non-existent, and I have no desire to write device drivers. Too bad. As a super-RTOS, it rocks, and it's free.

Lastly, I window-shopped MinuetOS, and was VERY impressed. Speedy, hardcore, free. Written entirely in ASM, this thing ROCKS. Its hardware support is lacking, however, and getting it installed onto a hard drive was a trick and a half, especially with the Toshiba "bug" that makes the Libretto and Portege freeze up in the middle of the configuration menu. Go figure. Once on the drive, it was extremely cool, and it was very -- interesting -- to re-write some of my favorite utilities in ASM (lots of support for ASM programming is built into Minuet), but ultimately Minuet just couldn't hold my attention. (I'll be back in about six months though, guys, to grab the latest release!!)

Ultimately, I just installed LilSlack on my laptop, and I haven't looked back since then, although I have made longing side glances at SourceMage (though terrified looks into my pocketbook as I think of spending money on more RAM have generally made that easier).

So: that was my experience with getting my laptop up and running in the fastest, coolest, and least painful manner possible. I will give you some suggestions for speeding up your system if you want to try keeping your current distro but, as mentioned, it might be helpful to give some thought to other Linux distros. I hope that this was not too horribly tangential (being not exactly what you asked for), and that you're not now asleep on your keyboard with boredom, drooling all over the keys. 'Cause that would be gross, dude!

:-)

Good luck! Let me know what happens.

Phil

Dude how's the book coming along? Man that was awesome. Thank you for taking the time.

Not since reading your post, I want install the cleanest leanest thing possible.

Ideally I'd like the Toshiba to:
- to be really fast
- have a slick interface to impress my friends, like Fluxbox for example!
- run a decent reliable mail client
- a web browser (Firefox and/or Dillo sound cool)
- Notepad substitute

A simple word processor and spreadsheet program would be added bonuses, but by no means necessary. I know Im dealing with next to no overhead when it comes to memory...

My G4 desktop has that covered

This sounds like exactly the type of Linux I need.

This was exactly the info I was looking for. The only question that remains is, should I download Slack off a slackware.com mirror site and then mess with it? I had heard this distro was chunk of work to install. (Please remember that I don't develop, and might be liable to toss the thing out the window trying to dig up the Linux driver for a cd-rom i dont know the model of...)

Apart from the fact I have no idea what I'm getting into, I'm pumped I can have a laptop that is cool again.

Thanks for the help.

K.

You can install win95 in about 75 mb.



Try looking on ebay for laptop harddrives. I bought a 6 gb drive used for $10 USD. Works great!

Kirk -- I'm very (!) glad that my information was useful. I'm formulating your answer as I type. I see that I've left tnf hanging for a few days, though, so while I think about what to write about your situation, I'll throw him a quick answer. Based on your gracious response, I'd imagine that you won't mind. :-)

tnf -- glad to hear that you're up for what might be a marathon installation session. Having taken a look a second look at my DamnSmallLinux materials, it looks like you might have a tough time installing it via floppy. You would, at the least, need a number of them.

Looking again at your requirements, though, I see a flaw in my logic regarding your situation. I'd like to help you get your laptop up and running as cheaply as possible -- but, if you would like to spend a little bit to upgrade your laptop's capabilities, there are a larger number of viable options. I'll go over the upgrade possibilities first -- if you feel like these don't work for you, or are too expensive, please let me know, and I'll walk you through getting a floppy-based Linux distro up and running.

Your upgrade options, however, are good.

First off, you can certainly buy a CD-ROM drive that uses your laptop's parallel port. They can be slightly more expensive than cheap PCMCIA drives, but Linux support for parallel port drives is generally good, whereas you really never know if your PCMCIA drive is supported under Linux (a reminder: inclusion in the Hardware Compatibility List for a distribution can mean that it has been gotten up and running on a single computer -- no mention is made of the pain or hardship said computer owner had to endure... be careful, and READ reviews and installation descriptions for your Linux hardware before buying). I have a PCMCIA drive that is supposedly supported across the board, but works only under certain kernels with certain PCMCIA bridges. Go figure.

That said, I found this while jogging around on the 'net -- an account of a fellow who installed Linux, via floppies, onto his Toshiba 3400 (the monochrome (!) version of the 3400CT). He details installing X. Like most essays found on "Linux on Laptops" (an excellent resource), it looks to be largely accurate, if a little dated.
http://www.muppetlabs.com/~reaper/laptop/

The HOWTO linked to in the 3400 article is dead -- a slightly newer copy of the HOWTO can be found here:
http://www.uni-paderborn.de/Linux/md...ini/X-Notebook

Here is a link to Linux on Laptops, as well:
http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Another option would be to purchase a PCMCIA network card that works under Windows, and install a runs-on-DOS/Windows Linux distro. There are a few -- DragonLinux, if I remember correctly, is one, and has gotten decent talk on OSNews.com (a very good place to find out what average techies think about various operating systems).

If you can find a network card that will work under Linux (a check of the Hardware Compatibility List on LinuxQuestions should tell you which ones work), there is also the option of booting into the, oh, say, slackware install (using pre-made boot and root floppies) and installing over the network. You stated that this was beyond your ken, but I would imagine that you are probably more capable of this than you think -- this stuff isn't rocket science, it just takes some reading. I can point you in the right direction, and help you through the hard parts, if you go this route. This would also probably be cheaper than buying a parallel port CD drive, and would certainly be faster than running Linux on top of Windows.

As for partitioning your hard drive -- are you planning on keeping your Windows installation? If so, you will need additional software. If you simply want to use the whole hard drive for Linux, things should be a bit easier. Let me know.

I hope that this was helpful. To recap, please let me know if upgrading is the path you want to follow, and also let me know whether or not you're planning on keeping Windows.

Good luck!
Phil

Reading this thread has brought back painful memories of the past four weeks.

At our last LUG meeting there were three old laptops that had been left there, should anyone want one.

I had second choice and took a P150 with 32mb ram and a 2mb Trident graphics card. It had a 1.4gb HD that I subsequently found had about 300k of bad sectors.

As I'd wanted a laptop for a while I decided that I could spend a few £ as I could always use the bits elsewhere, at a later date.

I picked up a 20gb HD ( I knew it was too big for bios) at a fair and, as it had a floppy drive and non-bootable cdrom I decided to start with a copy of RH 6 - that was fine until it found the mouse (ps2) and froze. Same happened with Mandrake 6 so I did a google on the bios and found that people had had problem with this particular set-up.

Having the space I decided to check everything out using windoze. I started from Dos 6.22, Win 3.1, Win 95, Win 98 up to ME. Everything ran fine and I was getting 800x600x16bit graphics. I soon found out that Cardbus pcmcia wouldn't work and found a 16bit 10/100 16bit pcmcia card for £5 at a fair.

With the above running fine on ADSL I decided to try every known smaller linux distro without any real success. I just couldn't get acceptable graphics and I was surprised at how well my patience coped - with such a slow machine it takes ages to do an install only to find it wouldn't work.

I did find that Conectiva 7 (based on RH7) gave me a full screen but only in 256 colours. I did get Vector Linux running in a limited fashion but I'd burned umpteen different CDs and was beginning to think that I was going to have to learn command line (great fun at 69) or admit defeat.

Yesterday evening I decided to have one last try and installed Fedora 1 - took a couple of hours but I got a full screen at acceptable quality. From the sounds of it my 150mb swap file is working overtime and Gnome is running very slooooooooow - I somehow missed IceWM on the initial install but I should be able to do some additions.

None of the distros I've tried has recognised the pcmcia card that I've got so I'll have to see if there are any that I can try at next weeks LUG meeting.

At least, with ADSL, I've managed to download any distro I wanted so the cost of trying only comes down to a few CDs.

check out linux format magazine "LXF51" for March 2004, it has all that you need on dvd or cd-rom, it even has "Puppy Linux" which is a complete os that boots and installs from floppy, usb, or anything else, it has a footprint of 48 megabytes

I'm in the same boat as a lot of the users here, I'm looking to install Linux on an old laptop. It's one I just got on ebay, the specs are as follows

Zeos 486 Contenda

CPU - 486 (??? mhz)
RAM - 8 MB (unupgradable)
Harddrive - 120 mb
Other Drives - Floppy, but no CDROM
Misc - It does have a 2400bps modem, external ethernet and a serial port, but no usb or anything new and fancy like that =)

Right now it's running DOS 6.22 w/ Win3.11 sitting on top of it

I don't want much, just a machine I can practice programming on. All I need is bash, a copy of gcc and emacs or vi. I don't care about putting X or any other gui on here, all I want is command line.

I've heard TinyLinux is good, but can't seem to get it to install. When I feed it the 1st floppy all I get is a message saying 'ntldr missing'

Does anyone have any advice on how to fix tinylinux or know of another small distro that has what I'm looking for? I really appreciate any advice, thanx in advance.

I'd downloaded Puppy Linux a few weeks back. At present I've found an ancient version of RH7 called Conectiva (on an old dvd) and installed that.

It's picked up my 16bit pcmcia 10/100 card so I've managed to get adsl running and do a bit of browsing using Netscrape.

What has surprised me is the amount of patience I've shown over the past four weeks