Greetings all!

I am 'somewhat' new to Linux. I took some courses in school and currently have a copy of Knoppix Live CD running on one machine but now that I have seen how far Linux has some graphically, I am finding that I have a few old machines that I want to install text-only versions of Linux on.

Eventually I'll work up to replacing my Win2K machine but not just yet (still got a lot of crap there to burn onto CD...).

So, I am looking for a couple of suggestions for a plain, console only distros to use on an AMD Am5x86-P75-S/32MB Ram, 1.2GB HD, Network, Sound, Floppy, CD-ROM (will test for bootability in a few moments actually<G>).

The point of this is to get my feet wet, try a few things and see how it goes. Then install a GUI version on the next bigger machine (P1 133...) and take another step.

Yeah, it is a long way of doing things but I want to know how things really work and see the differences. Besides, I need to make use of these old mahicnes any ways

TIA!

Install Slackware, and skip packages from x, xap, kde, kdei, and gnome.

You'll get a small, fast Linux that'll run as far back as a 386...

I agree with the above post I would also suggest you think of a project for these boxen. I have always found it good to have a goal, as it keeps you on track with your learning process. Some possible projects could be. the ever popular firewall/gateway on a POS. (I have one of these). If you have a few bucks make an access point ( you may not have a PCI bus?), or a trim down web server (no perl/php although you can try), Caching name server

-Matt

I was thinking of a firewall/router idea down the road but for this little thing, probably just a little document/textfile server. It is only 1.2GB From there I'd like to learn more aobut Servers in general.

Ok, right now it's giving me a hard time. Won't boot from CD (BIOS doesn't allow it) and boot from floppy is not terribly happy about it (this is the trial Knoppix Live CD boot at run level 2 (text only). Keep getting lots of 'boot failed: please change disks and pres a key..." ugh.

Thanks for the reply all! This iwll be a work in progress for quite soem time....be prepared for many more questions

Ok, Slack is starting to really annoy the crap out of me. Seems that I can't find a single ISO image. "we don't haev the band width, try one of the mirros" Funny...all the mirrors exactly that....mirrors...they have the same damn file saying the same damn thing.

So, <big sigh>....where can I get an ISO image of the latest version of slack?

Someon suggested not getting certain packages, any suggestions on how to compile/get your own 'package set'?

Err...never mind...gave Bittorrent a second chance...it actually works this time. We'll see how the ISO DL/install goes

Well, after fiddling around with multiple root disks, I got into paritioning. That seemed to go relatively painless.

Now I have problem mounting /home.

Current setup (2.5GB)

/dev/hda1 80MB Root Mount (/) (bootable)
/dev/hda2 300MB /usr
/dev/hda3 128MB Swap
/dev/hda4 1992MB Can't mount /home.

When I type:

mount -t ext2 /dev/hda4 /home

I get:

"mount: mount point /home does not exist"

But I was able to use the same command to mount / and /usr just fine.

Subbestions?

(/dev/hda4 has already been formatted like the others (except the swap partition of course)

er,

mkdir /home ; mount -t ext2 /dev/hda4 /home

Aaarrgh!

Tried mkdir and got told 'file already exists'.

When I typed the 'mount' command on it's own, it was nost listed there.

I changed to the /home directory, ran the mount command and guess what...it mounted without a single complaint!

What the heck happened there? The exact same command I ran for / and /usr worked fine but did not work for /home. Now, this morning it works fine.

The only difference that I can see, I was actually in the directory before mounting it.

BTW, thanks for the reply.

Ok, got that little minor annoyance out of the way....now setup isn't working.
According to Slackware's instructions:

"After you have defined your partitions, exit fdisk and start the setup program by typing setup at the prompt"

Guess what...'no such file or directory'

Perhaps I should take a step back and ask....how do you define mount points in fdisk?

Does anyone know of any company that makes really clear setup/installation instructions?

you must boot from the installation cd for setup to work. <edit- I see you're using floppies boot bare.i + root color.gz should work>
you don't define mount points fron fdisk - setup does that for you.

the distros with the easy setups will probably be painfully slow on the hardware you described, if they run at all.

Sorry to be a bit of a pain but this process is far from easy. I am, by no means, un-techicaal (hell, do it for a living).

The disks I am using are bare.i and install.1/install.2. 3 disks in total.

And according to the instructions, the disks do not automatically setup.

Here's the list of instructions:

http://www.slackware.com/install/

It's the last step that will not work.

So, I decided to setup the CD ROM...small problem....I got 2 CDROMs in the machine...an older 6x and a newer one (12x?). Guess what, it picked up the 6X...which doesn't seem to want to read the ISO image I burned at 24X.

So....I think I will have to unplug that CD-ROM and see if it picks it up.

Boy what a learning curve this is....but at least it's a learning curve.

not a problem...

shows you how long it's been since I installed from a floppy. The last time for me, it was bare.i and color.gz! Imagine, only two disks.

question: does the BIOS support booting from CD? Back in those days, not many did if I recall correctly.

Are they IDE drives or the psuedo-scsi sound card interface type?

if all ellse fails, boot from the floppies and try looking in /sbin for the setup program, it could be a path problem that you can work around. If it's not in /sbin, try:

then go get a soda... it'll take a few minutes to complete. If it finds it, it will spit out the absolute path to the file and you can call it just as it's printed.

if it doesn't find it, maybe you should try making fresh copies.

Well, got it installed!

What I had to do?

Go through 4 CD-ROMS to finally do so :P

Good thing I've collected a bunch of old systems that I've collected over the least year or so

So, after one trial install, I ran out of room when installing modules. (Choose Newbie method from menu).

Repartitioned the drive, went through a different section ('Menu') and it installed fine.

Of course, finding a few things missing/not installed but getting the hang of things.

Currently trying to get the network card working. But I'll start a new thread I think

Thanks for all your help, looking forward to more :O