I installed BasicLinux earlier today, but anyway, it didn't work out as I thought it would. Missing tools and things like that.

Anyway.

This is what I have:

486 DX2, 66MHz
9MB RAM
400MB HDD

I know for sure that it is possible to get Linux into that system, so don't say "too little RAM" or other stupid things, the question is just which distribution?

I want something that's easy to install but still flexiable.


Please help!

please try searching this site, belive it or not, this is an extremely common question (linux for 486)

No matter what distro you run don't expect X to be much use on that hardware. Command line tools should be fine though

Jamie...

What sort of flexibility do you ask for? If you just need a command line box, any distro would do the job. In another hand, if you wanna use it for printing and writing with X, you could try the mini distro Grey Cat Linux, which I use myself in a 386 computer with 8 of RAM and with good speed under X

http://home.wanadoo.nl/peterdekoning/main.htm

I'm a newbie, but what is X? Some kind of GUI, windows?

All I want is the command line interface and the ability to install and uninstall various kinds of software.

Networking is a must, I want to run BNC on it.

Slackware says "16MB RAM"... is that really needed?
I might get more RAM later but I doubt it.


Would I be able to put Slackware on that machine?

I can't boot from CD neither.


I have already used BasicLinux, today, but when I tried to fix the boot thing, it all got messed up so I removed all partitions.
This time I want to do it all over and use some distro that have software. BasicLinux didn't have LILO.

I have recently put Slackware 9 on a pentium 100 with only 12 MB RAM. Don't know about 9MB, but it sure doesn't need 16! And it's a "nice" distro, in my opinion.

Yes, X is a windowing environment.

oh, OK.
12 and 9MB are both odd numbers so I think it should work.


I read somewhere that Slackware is on 4 CD's. But I can only find one ISO file that's about 662MB.
ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/Linux/distrib...kware-9.0-iso/

Is that the one?

Not so. Try XDirectFB for superfast X11.

Tobbe,
Yes, there is only one ISO to download. Perhaps the Slackware boxed set for sale comes with other stuff, like extra docs, packages, and source. But the one ISO is what you want. And you can also download a bootdisk to boot from floppy. See www.slackware.com for details.

I would reccomend Slackwire, or SuSE if possable, i am a newbie my self, and the slack ware site has great features and help files

I wasn't just refering to starting X itself, think about trying to start Mozilla with that amound of physical RAM - you'd definately end up using plenty of swap. Sorry if my initial comment was clear. I don't recon GUI's will catch on anyway

cheers

Jamie...

I've got little more RAM now. 12MB, then 1MB is used for graphics.
I am downloading Slackware ISO now.

I just want to know, will it work to 100%?
I was able to install and run BasicLinux so why shouldn't this work?

I just want it to be pure and no junk.

The RAWRITE docs are confusing.
It tells me how to use it but there's info about which file I should use it with.

RAWRITE writes your boot/driver floppies.

Look for those images.

The Official Guide To Slackware Linux

I have already looked there...

I know that I should use bare.i
But there's no such file, just directory.