Hello,

Is there a Linux distribution for 16mb ram, that still lives today?
(not EOL)

Which Modern Linux distributions for my TOSHIBA 220CS Satellite 16MB ram?

Kind regards,
James

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With only 16MB of ram you will definitely struggle to get a modern system on it, some might install if you create a swap partition before trying to install it.

Maybe look at SliTaz or Tiny Core Linux, if you want a GUI, otherwise try a command line only install.

It might be better to install FreeDOS, (There are some GUI for it), or one of the assembler O/S, (Menuet - http://menuetos.net/ ).

It seems for higher memory specs than 16MB.
http://www.menuetos.net/hwc.txt

It seems that it is under developed.

Does Linux fit with it still?

A little machine like this would be a classic gamer's wet dream! Install DOS on it, and put some old apps/games.

But most modern Linux distros require a minimum of 1GB RAM, and want at least 10GB storage, even if you're just going to use it for command line stuff. Adding SWAP would make the whole thing seriously slow(er than would probably be feasible). You also won't find a halfway modern web browser that can run in that kind of minimal RAM.

Linux is great for reviving old hardware, but it still has it's limits.

Your image claims "16 - 144 MB EDO RAM" - so if you can upgrade you might have a chance, but otherwise 16MB is very likely not going to be enough.

Even Tiny Core Linux requires 48MB of memory.

You might get lucky with http://www.toms.net/rb/ or https://fdlinux.com but I doubt these count as "modern" distributions.


Why do you want to do this - if you're interested in the looks, I wonder how easy it might be to remove the innards and connect up a Pi/similar?

As implied by post #5, you'll likely need to at least triple installed RAM. Only modestly newer hardware than that laptop needs almost that just to run without X:8192k RAM is tied up here by the IGP. Upgrading from Wheezy's 3.2 kernel to Jessie's 3.16, used RAM jumped to 53012, with neither network nor X running. Back in Wheezy with init=/bin/bash, used dropped to 9324, of which cached 2752, rather surprising to me from a /boot/vmlinuz taking up 2.5M.

Then I would just put FreeDOS (& a GUI) on it, at least FreeDOS is a maintained version, & you can run almost any old DOS programs on it.

Trivia: The original IBM System/360 mainframe topped-out at 16 megabytes, because it had a 24-bit address bus even though it was a 32-bit computer.

I also once saw an actual, running, System/360 which had magnetic core memory. (It was there because it could still run an IBM 1401 emulator ...)

Only thing that ran on my Kapok netbook from the 90's with a floppy drive only and less ram

https://hackaday.com/2020/07/08/the-...oppy-in-a-486/

No usb ports and pmcia slot was the older 8 bit. Got a Netgear MA401 pmcia card work for wireless on that old gear.
No wpa capabilities though.

Try and find the version 3 of blueflops I think because it comes version 3.x kernel. Older blueflops comes with like a 2.x kernel.

Another I played around with on older gear was

https://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=womp

For cd boot. One needs to look at PLOP and supply a pmcia cdrom drive. I keep one on the shelf. Needless to say. My 1st step would be to make a plop floppy disc to start on a project like this.

You actually have a choice — DOS or KolibriOS — but forget Linux.
http://kolibrios.org/en/
http://www.freedos.org/
Kolibri is prettier but DOS has the software — even a web-browswer (Arachne).

1.) DOS
no Dos and Windowz nooo ! no win 3.1. we must be using only: free, opensource software

2.) Koli.
http://kolibrios.org/en/ seems too heavy.

3.) Why not just a Libre Linux?
Isn't there a Libre "Linux" kernel or something that supports 16 mb ram ?

I do not know of a modern linux distribution that is capable of running in 16 MB anymore. The last one that I know could was Damn Small Linux which has been dormant since 2012. Tiny core is probably the current distribution with the least requirements but it needs at least 28 MB RAM


http://distro.ibiblio.org/damnsmall/

Seems? So you've not bothered to try it?


There are Linux distros that will run in 16 MB of RAM - the website of the already linked Fd Linux says it will run in 8MB - but its 2.4 kernel is from two decades ago, and you originally asked for modern.

Tiny Slitaz (also mentioned earlier) will run in only 4MB, but with a 2.6 kernel from 2005 it's only slightly newer.

Why don't you go to the TinyCore forums and ask the experts what the challenges with getting modern kernels in such low levels of memory might be?

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FreeDOS is free & open source.

Kernel only, yes.

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It is out of mind to use a 2.x kernel of linux. There is not even any USB support.

We must have 5.x libre kernel for old machines. I have heard of a fork of linux kernel for maintaining user freedom and libre software. Linux modern kernel is not fully libre.