i have an old computer that i want to use something for. it has a 2gb hard drive and 30mb of ram.

i've tried a few other disributions, but they all freeze while booting the installation.

I'm going to try using red hat, what version would work?

Howzit

Any version Linux will run on a 386. When installing try not using the graphical mode but text mode and see what happens. It may be a problem with vga and X can't run. If u want a GUI install try using low res for the install. If still no go then when u boot and get to the install prompt type in noprob this will not prob the hardware and allows u to specify what hardware u want. Also using ALT - F1, ALT - F2, ALT - F3,ALT - F4, ALT - F, this allows u to view what the install is doing and where it is hanging.

Good Luck

chow

i tried red hat 8, when it was booting to a the text install it stopped at this errror:

Kernel panic: VFS: Unable to mount root fs on 09:02

Howzit

R u booting from a CD if so try booting from a linux boot disks instead it may be a problem with the cdrom. Under linux goto the cdrom to the dir that says images and cat bootdisk.img > /dev/fd0 if u don´t have a linux box under windows goto linux cdrom under dosutils use the rawrite cmd to create a lunix bootdisk.

chow

i've done a successful installation with it on another computer.

I don't mean problem with cd but the drive might be an old one either way why not give it s shot see what happens

For installing it on older computers or computers with less RAM than required, check out the RULE project.

i used the rule installer, but it didn't start an installion...

when boot: came up i pressed enter. then all it did was boot to a # prompt, how do i continue installing from there?

Which one did you try exactly?

The RULE project page also has a "docs" section with step-by-step instructions.

I've gotten similar errors on older machines that followed old memory map specifications.

Try the following:

1) figure out how much ram is actually in the machine
2) at the first installation screen type:
linux mem=exactmap mem=640K@0 mem=xxxM@1M where xxx = the amount of ram installed (in megabytes) -1.

For instance, on a machine with 96mb, you'll use:

linux mem-exactmap mem=640k@0 mem=95M@1M

if you've had to do this to install, you'll probably have to go into /boot/grub and add it to grub.conf like this example from a machine with 208mb installed:

default=0
timeout=10
splashimage=(hd0,0)/grub/splash.xpm.gz
title Red Hat Linux (2.4.20-8)
root (hd0,0)
kernel /vmlinuz-2.4.20-8 ro root=LABEL=/ mem=exactmap mem=640K@0 mem=207
M@1M
initrd /initrd-2.4.20-8.img