2 Newbie questions - pls help to get me started
 

I am a real newbie to Linux. I would like to install slackware 3.3 on my Toshiba laptop (Tecra 500 CDT, pentium II, 16 MB ram, 1 G HDD) I read somewhere that someone use slackware 3.3 on this model of laptop, and also in the Linux beginner lessons (linux.org) that there is a program FIPS which can create addition partitions on HDD without erasing the orignal partition. My questions are:

1. where can I find the distribution for slackware 3.3. I did download slackware 9.0, but not sure if it will fit into my old toshiba.

2. the beginner lessons says most major distribution comes with FIPS, but I do not see it in the slackware 9.0 files. Where can I find FIPS.

Thanks for any help.

ks8

I'm just another newbie and based on my own experience I would say stay away from Slackware Linux. As far as partitioning tools that come with linux distros I would stay away from them I have had too much trouble with them not working correctly and destroying my partitions. I would recommend Partition Magic for doing partitions. It is the best thing I have ever seen. If you are pro you might like Slackware but being a newbie I was scared when it left me at a command prompt with no GUI. :cry:

ks8,

I agree with jbeedham "any" of the old distros are going to need "a lot of tweaking" by any newbie.

The latest distros Red Hat or Mandrake 8.0 0r 9.0 are MUCH easier to get up and running.

If you really want to try Slackware, you can get a copy of ver. 3.5 here

http://www.edmunds-enterprises.com/l...tl/product/114

for $2.49 including shipping and handling.

I guess it depends how computer literate you are. I'm not particularly, so have had a struggle to learn. Also my system is old by current standards so some late distros take a long time to load, or my video card is not recognised.

I have tried Suse 7.1 which went well, Mandrake 9 which was okay for internet and printing and word processing but Gimp didn't display properly; Red Hat 8 worked okay but was very, very slow (as Was Mandrake).

Now trying lycoris which installed easily, doesn't have a heap of stuff I never use, and is easy and quick to use while still having command line available. I think Linux "purists" are not keen on lycoris, but I think as a starter for a person in transition from Windows, that it is great.

Thank you all for your good and quick advice. I'll try Lycoris or Mandrake 9 to get my feet wet.

ks

With a 16MB of RAM, you might want to try lighter distros like Peanut Linux, Vector Linux, etc... If you insist on using Mandrake 9, try trimming it down, and use a lighter Window Manager like Fluxbox and Blackbox (although i think this will still be a lil' slow).... I really doubt if KDE or Gnome will work well with 16MB of RAM....

Yes vector linux is another that was recommended to me. I am in the process of getting that going so will let you know how it goes if you like.

So far it has booted from CD and I added root and user name, but now it's asking to or for "initial group [users]:" - so I have to go to vector site and find out what that means!

Cheers
Rose

Thanks for all the advice again. I found Peanuts and Vector. But I have to do some cleaning up of my HDD. It has 250 MB left. May be I'll have to get rid of MS Office (if I do, I will not be able to get it back, since it was installed from network at work, which is no longer accessible).

ok, good luck, let us know how it goes.... :)

Hi, I am back for help. Since my toshiba laptop was old, and the cd drive cannot boot, I followed the instruction to dl the files into HDD and ran the file ram.bat. It was a disaster (my fault, since I placed one file in a network drive on my newer laptop). Ram.bat ran a little while,gave a message that it is altering something to run it in DOS, and then it gave an erron message the Kernal is trying to kill.. and the process just got stuck. I hard re-booted. all I got was a blue windows screen. I booted into DOS, and after much searching, replaced win.ini with an older backup, and windows works again, but it would not run dos commands (from start->run->command). Please help to point out to me which file has been altered so I can bring it back to it normal state. Then, I will try and do the peanut install again. But, I have to bring it back to where I was before I got started. Thanks in advance.

KS

i would suggest u try Red Hat 7.3, its work fine on my Toshiba Pentium 1 wit 32 meg ram....it can get abit laggy when working in xmode so may i suggest you get atleast 128 meg ram if possible if not more...hope i helpt....

Well, I gave Peanut another try. Followed the Install instructions, dl two files to c:\peanut and ran "ram.bat". It stopped at the same place with the following errors:

"Unable to handle paging request at virtual address 8e504d64 ..." following by a dump of some trace addresses. Then
"<o> Kernal panic: attempted to kill init!"

Can anyone help please. TIA.

KS

When Vector asks for that information, it's trying to create a user profile. You can blank your way through it and it will just create a default new user, which is fine. It doesn't really make a difference unless you're on a LAN using PINE, or if for some reason you want to give the user different permissions.
Andrew

FWIW, I was able to get Mandrake 9.2 running (and am still running) well on a Toshiba Tecra 500CS, with Pentium 120, 64 MB RAM, 1.2 GB HDD. I run XFree86 4.3, SSH, SAMBA, IceWM, XVNC Server (I am able to log in run desktop remotely via SSH tunnel). I created a large root and swap partition and a correspondingly smaller home partition. I first tried SuSE, Slackware, Peanut, Knoppix, and Damnsmall. Damnsmall was the only other distro that I was really able to get running reliably. Respond back if you have any more specific questions.

Ken

Ken, thanks for the info. I have given up. It took me a long time and effort to recover the win95. I have since increase my RAM to 64M, so my toshiba looks like yours now. I have also installed WIN NT4 (found an old copy) and it is running dual boot.

I want to learn Linux and install it here, since both win95 and winnt4 are obsolete. Please let me know where you dl Mandrake 9.2. How much disc space do I need and what are those other programs that you are using. Thanks.

KS