I installed Mandrake i486 (Mdk 7) on my ancient Compaq Contura 410c 1.7 GB harddisk by performing the install with the hardisk connected to my PC (with an 2.5" adapter cable). It currently runs well in the laptop on the original 2.2 kernel.

What would be the best way to bring the install to current levels (say Mdk 9.1 or even 10.1). Should I get the source rpms and build them locally to get a i486 architechture? How should I go about doing this?

The current h/w config is: 486 DX2 50 mhz, 8 MB RAM (to be upgraded to 20 Mb), 1.7 GB. I will be getting a 16-bit ethernet pcmcia. I've found a vendor with Netgear FA411. Any better suggestions?

Also which kernel would be better? (given the limited RAM) I plan to run X occasionally with the icewm or blackbox window manager. I've managed to configure the X server correctly.

I would eventually use this to ssh or vnc to my desktop or a server. And ofcourse mainly just to show off the versitality of Linux. Maybe do the odd bit of web browsing.

All help would be greatly appreciated.

Others may have more experience than myself, but from personal experience I very heavily doubt that that computer is going to run Mandriva 10.x or even 9.x. It just doesn't seem like you have the system resources to do it, even with a heavily stripped down version of Mandriva. Have you considered something like Damn Small Linux? It should be able to boot into a fairly nice environment even with your resources. There may be other distros out there that would be suitable as well. Has anyone gotten a new version of Mandriva to work on a similar system?

hmmm I think I agree with springshades there...

I used to use Mandrake 9.0 & 9.1 and I'm sure it is optimised for 586 and above

you might have to go with a 386 compatible distro, either something Debian based or even a copy of Red Hat 9.0 if you want something modern

floppy

After trying nearly every distro on my Dell Latitude pentium II 266mhz with 64megs ram, I found there is now way that can handle any new Mandrake, or even Slack. What did run super fast is Vector 4.3. Vector 5 is out now, and my laptop actually runs Vector 5.0 Soho perfectly at 128 megs of ram with kde. I like it as well as Mandriva if only it had rpm repositories (just preference). It is able to install Slack packages with ease though. I would try Vector 4.3, if that is not happy, your only choice is probably peanut. Just a note, I am noticing local shops around me selling new Acer laptops with Linux preloaded for as little as $800. Worth some thought.