Hi all, I'm choosing to post here because after exhaustive checking out of many distro's, puppy seemed most user friendly, lots of good tutorials etc. I'm a newbie and I read alot of posts here but couldn't find the answers I needed, so I'm posting and hoping I'm in the right place.

I run both mac and a windows on laptops, but I love the idea that linux makes older computers serviceable again. Plus after a full week of reading about linux ( really, ten hours a day! ) I'm convinced linux will take over the world.

I'm trying to install on a Compaq Presario 5286, 64MB RAM, CPU AMD K6 450 Mhz, HD Samsung SP1614N 160GB.

From my reading I understood that with these specs I could hope to boot at least an earlier version of Puppy. So I tried 1.01. - boot failure. I should say that prior to this I have tried Knoppix, DSL, Devil linux!(early attempt to get something to boot), plus various syslinux versions of the above even a win98 repack - hoping to boot so I can switch over that way.

I am trying to boot from LIveCD because there is absolutely nothing on the HD, it's a leftover external drive. I got the Compaq without the original HD and so obviously no OS.

I have tried various bios settings, as recommended, but the Compaq has no boot menu as such, just Primary IDE enabled/disabled and Secondary IDE enabled/disabled. It also has an MSDOS and Windows or other operating systems toggle, I've tried both but which should be the best?

The drive on this machine says it's a DVD ROM, and it's from 1999, so I'm assuming it's up to installing.

I checked out the ISO burning info at the Puppy site and I'm burning at x4 using the CDCC prog they recommended.

The HD was formatted NTFS which I understood could maybe be read but not written to by linux. I have tried partitioning as Fat32, but I'm a bit stuck because I only have XP so thanks to Microsoft I can only partition up to 32GB. I tried some third party software for this, but I was a bit out of my league and couldn't get it to run. I'm also not sure how to format a swap partition ( I keep reading about this...hmm)

I am booting from CD so actually I don't need a HD yet but I wondered if it was possible to install a file to the HD from another computer and stick it back in the Compaq and boot from that.

Knoppix could start to install but then couldn't find the knoppix file system and dropped me to a very small shell and : knoppix #

Devil linux installed to a point and then asked for login, when in frustration I put in "root", it asked for a password.

Both could find my HD make and model and other devices.

Puppy just fails to boot.

I'm quite tenacious and excited to find out about linux, and I know there is an answer out there, but I've reached the point where I could use a spot of help. If anyone has the time to give me a few pointers I'd be very grateful. Thanks

I run Puppy 2.02 on an equally old / older laptop (from 1998), an Acer 505, with Celeron 433 MHz, 32 MB RAM, CD-ROM and 4 GB HDD. Haven't had any problems so far.

I booted off a RedHat Linux installation CD to delete the earlier Win98 partitions on the hard disk. Later i used Puppy Linux to create new partitions and save data on them.

Have you tried with a newer version of Puppy perhaps? I don't think you need to go so far back puppy's product line to revive your Compaq.

P.S: I haven't had much experience with using linux as a desktop / laptop. Haven't ever tried puppy 1.01 on my laptop, so i'm guessing here too.

Thanks osdeals,
I read somewhere in the puppy help pages that I should use a version before 1.02 for my processor and RAM. But what the hell, if it's working for you, I better give it a try.
Good to know I'm not completely barking up the wrong tree.
Any other pointers appreciated.

Skruffyhound, the newer versions of Puppy are actually MORE likely to work on older and more modest hardware, since they make more efficient use of memory in particular.

Please try 2.13 before reaching any conclusions.

One tip, Puppy versions come out about every 6 to 8 weeks, so the secret of happiness is to own 2 CD-RW discs

Your processor is fast enough, the hard disk is HUGE by Puppy standards, but with 64MB you would be advised to create a swap partition of about 200MB before running Puppy. You can do this using the GParted liveCD, or a tomsrtbt floppy. Full instructions on using either for Puppy are to be found on the puppy main forum at http://www.murga-linux.org/puppy/

I have run Puppy quite happily on a 133MHz P1 with 80MB in the past.

Good luck,
Mark

Thanks marksouth2000,
I'll get onto it and report back. Or at least ask some more questions

I am having the same problem trying to get a very similar computer going - it is a 550 Intel Celeron and 64 MB and an old Phillips DVD/CDR.

My guess is that you have to use the older syslinux to boot instead of isolinux.

Best Wishes,

David Ring

I should have added that I've gotten 500 MHz AMD K6 and 500 MHz Pentium2 computers going with Puppy.

I don't remember if I had problem with the 550 MHz Celeron - I doubt that I have - I think that the problem is that the mainboard - which was made by an OEM maker from Korea - I forget the name - just won't boot. HP/Compaq hasn't issued a BIOS update for this board since 2001 - the board won't support HD larger than 10 GB - extrememly large only a few years ago, etc.

I think the problem with HP is that the boards and firmware are (in some cases) of low quality.

You might try making a disk of Damn Small Linux and booting from it. Or find a download for the excellent but no longer updated Feather Linux - both allow booting using syslinux as a boot command option.

Anyway - next time I see that computer (over a client's house), I'm bring another distro - as I mentioned to see if it books using syslinux.

Best

David Ring