[SOLVED] Old Compaq Win ME won't Install Mint 13,14,15,16

2cen · 05-18-2014, 01:51 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hilyard

A Non-PAE 32-bit distro is what is needed to get the old ME machine working.
First, try burning a LiveCD of an appropriate distro like Puppy Slacko 5.7 and running it.
Max out the motherboard's RAM capacity before trying to install any such distro on hard drive.

Thanx, hilyard! That is a good idea. I'll find out what the mobo will hold. And I'll burn a copy of Puppy. Thanx for the link too!

2cen · 05-18-2014, 01:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by k3lt01

Without knowing the specs of the machine it is really difficult to give worthwhile suggestions.
Windows ME (Millennium Edition) is from 2000, Windows 98 is from 1998, Windows 98SE is from 1999, and Windows XP is from 2001. The machine probably has 128 or 256 MB of RAM.

A 486 kernelled Debian FluxBox would run on it and probably reasonably well considering its age as long as the programs used in it weren't big.

Thanx,k3lt01! I'll have to check out the Fluxbox. This is what it has on it:
Intel III 850Mhz
128 MB Mem
11MB alocated as Video Mem
40 GB hard drive
Thanx, again!

k3lt01 · 05-18-2014, 03:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2cen

Thanx,k3lt01! I'll have to check out the Fluxbox. This is what it has on it:
Intel III 850Mhz
128 MB Mem
11MB alocated as Video Mem
40 GB hard drive
Thanx, again!

Here's some light reading for you
https://wiki.debian.org/FluxBox
http://fluxbox.org/

Sumguy · 05-18-2014, 10:22 AM

I love Debian, but I think even a minimal Debian install (or even Crunchbang- which is essentially a stripped-down Debian with Openbox) would be too much for that pooter. Something like AntiX (the whole OS is only 700 & something MBs ) would fly on it though! (You can just delete the Marxist bookmarks which come preloaded in the web browser).

DavidMcCann · 05-19-2014, 10:53 AM

Put AntiX on it. You've got 117MB of free memory: the last time I tried AntiX, I could run the Ted word-processor or the Dillo web-browser and use no more that 60MB!

2cen · 05-20-2014, 02:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

Put AntiX on it. You've got 117MB of free memory: the last time I tried AntiX, I could run the Ted word-processor or the Dillo web-browser and use no more that 60MB!

Thanx David! I'll do that!

jross · 05-20-2014, 04:55 AM

Maybe Lubuntu would work on that?

DavidMcCann · 05-20-2014, 10:32 AM

I don't have statistics for Lubuntu, but using Salix you need 80MB for LXDE before running any software, compared with only 60MB for Icewm. If you've only got 117MB, every MB counts. And to think I used to do word-processing in 64KB!

szboardstretcher · 05-20-2014, 10:35 AM

With 64M of ram I can run 'dwm' window manager and 'lynx' or 'dillo.' You could experiment with that. Tiling window managers are far smaller than OpenBox or LXDE. dwm is only 20k.

JeremyBoden · 05-20-2014, 02:40 PM

Even a Raspberry Pi comes with 512MB!

Sumguy · 05-20-2014, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeremyBoden

Even a Raspberry Pi comes with 512MB!

I thought it came with four-and-twenty blackbirds?

2cen · 05-21-2014, 07:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMcCann

I don't have statistics for Lubuntu, but using Salix you need 80MB for LXDE before running any software, compared with only 60MB for Icewm. If you've only got 117MB, every MB counts. And to think I used to do word-processing in 64KB!

It's only got 128 mb of ram. I put Puppy 5. on it last night, and it works, but I have to get the latest download and burn it. Thanx, guys, I appreciate the imput!

2cen · 05-21-2014, 07:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sumguy

I thought it came with four-and-twenty blackbirds?

LOL No whip-poor-wills?

2cen · 05-21-2014, 07:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jross

Maybe Lubuntu would work on that?

Thanx, j! I'll have to check that out! I ran a live disc Puppy 5 on it last night. Got get another 128 mb that it'll hold.

cascade9 · 05-21-2014, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EDDY1

wins me is very outdated & some or most of those machnes needed to be booted from floppy to load cd drivers for install from cd. If I recall floppy is only 128Mb. Maybe 1 can use the netinstall from floppy. Not sure though.

Older systems sometimes needed a driver for the CD drive, shouldnt be an issue with a p3.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2cen

Good advice, thanks John! It has 128 megs ram. I finally got XP on it, but IE as the browser kept sticking, and I couldn't get Chrome to install, and then the CD drive stopped working.

Chrome, or most other browsers arent going to work well, if at all on a 128MB XP system. For XP SP2 or later, you really need 256MB of RAM..and there isnt much point anyway, XP is end of life, and shouldnt be used at all if you ever want to hook up to the internet.

Quote:

Originally Posted by hilyard

A Non-PAE 32-bit distro is what is needed to get the old ME machine working.
First, try burning a LiveCD of an appropriate distro like Puppy Slacko 5.7 and running it.
Max out the motherboard's RAM capacity before trying to install any such distro on hard drive.

P3 'desktop' CPUs have PAE. You dont need a non PAE distro.

Quote:

PAE is supported by Intel Pentium Pro and later Pentium-series processors except most 400 MHz-bus versions of the Pentium M

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension

'Maxing out' the RAM could well cost more than getting something newer, faster and with better power efficiency.

I'm always suprised at people suggesting puppy for low RAM systems....

Quote:

Originally Posted by John VV

there are some like "AntiX"

Which what I'd probably install. But I dont have an issue with a few bookmarks, unlike some people here :P