All "Window Managers" that I know about require an X-server to run on. It is pretty much the standard way of doing a GUI in Unix/Linux.

There is however some console programs that you might be intersted in. The most popular is one called Midnight Commander (or "mc" for short). It is kind of like the old PCTools or Norton Commander. I'm sure Zipslack has it. Just enter "mc" at the command prompt. I recently found another one called "ytree" that is kind of a bad imitation of xtree.

The command line shells in Unix/Linux are archane, but very powerful. They are well worth leaning. I rarely use "mc" because I can be more productive just using the bash prompt.

Sure. The normal Zipslack way is to boot into windows first then run the the included batch file that then boots into Linux. You can use the old MSDOS Config.sys "Menu" system to give you a quick menu of choices before it boots all the way up into the 32bit Windows GUI. The hole thing is pretty easy for old MSDOS users and works very well.

The standard Linux boot loader, "lilo" also can give you a menu. Lilo starts before any OS starts. I'm sure Zipslack (and muLinux) includes it as well, but I would not recommend fooling around with it until you read all the documentation carefully. You can quickly end up with the computer that won't boot from it's hard drive if you don't know what you are doing. "Grub" is another Linux boot loader with a menu. I've never used it, but it seems to work well too.

The MS-DOS config.sys commands associated with "menu" can do all this. If you can scare up an old copy of MSDOS 6.x, boot it and type HELP CONFIG.SYS and it should tell you how it all works and probably even has examples. Basically you set up the menu in Config.sys then do a "goto %config% in your autoexec.bat file, where one branch is to run the batch file containing "loadlin.exe" and the other is to simply end so you can continue booting windows.

I have loaded mulinux, takes a loooooong time to boot. I am going to use a dos program called access to load either windows or linux, it works well. About mulinux, it takes a long time, 5s or so for each option i.e. ppp sound cd-rom. i have most of them disabled, but they just sit there, then it goes to the next option. in slack on the celeron i can use dir, not the case for mulinux do you know the command for mulinux? i saw in the wks package that it had midnight commander, i think i will try it. mulinux came with pion seems like it more to view pics and preview music??? Mulinux still loads a ram disk around 4026k dont have the exact numbers

wartstew
thanks for all the help it is greatly appericated

I think it uncompresses the script as it gives it to you or something. It does do a lot of strange stuff on bootup. The key be sure to save your preferances at the end so it will bypass all that the next time you boot. (unless of course you ask for it again). Also see my note below about the fact you are trying to run a system with about 1 meg of RAM free!!! You are probably doing a LOT of swapping.

"dir" really isn't a Unix/Linux command. Zipslack simply aliases it to "ls -l" to look kind of like DOS's "dir". In any case the command is "ls" for "list". Welcome to the world of screwy-named Unix commands!

I think the version of mc in muLinux either really isn't mc or at most a very old one, All I can remember is that I wasn't impressed. The *real* one on Zipslack is much better. "PION" is a simple program that muLinux's author wrote in shell script. It doesn't appear that he finished it. I guess it would call whatever external functions to do "viewing", but it doesn't look like that part was written yet. It does look like some basic file manager functions are there however.

And yes MuLinux does load a ramdisk until you clone it to a hard drive. Then it won't anymore. In your case of low memory, don't expect a hole lot to work until you do this an thus freeing up over half your computers RAM so the OS will have some space to work in! It should run a lot faster this way too. I figure you only have a little over a meg free right now, which means you are doing a lot of swapping to your swapfile to get anything done.

===================

I just built up a quickie development system to compile a 2.0.x version of the Linux kernel that muLinux uses, then compiled a 2.0.39 kernel for it. The reason I did this was that the 2.0.36 kernel can't read the later version of the EXT2 file system that modern Linux distributions tend to use. Specifically it can't do "Sparse Inode" mode. The 2.0.39 kernel can and it is the latest in the 2.0.x series of kernels. I got tired of muLinux not being to mount other Linux filesystems.

The whole process was a little bit of a pain because it seems you have to compile old kernels using old Linux distros that have old compilers. I dug up an old Redhat 5.1 disk and squeezed a very minimal system on an old small hard disk.

The reason I'm telling you this is because if you actually start liking muLinux and find you need/want a custom kernel compiled for some reason, let me know.

========================

To bad you don't have/need networking on that laptop. The real power of Linux is in its networking capabilities. Most of MuLinux's really cool features are network specific ones. An old laptop like that would make a great little home server(web, email, DNS, DHCP, Print, etc)/security firewall/internet router/etc because of it's size, low power utilization and quiet running. Does the thing even have a PCMCIA slot? If not, you could put a modem on it's serial port, then a parallel port ethernet adapter on the parallel port and make an internet dialup router out of it with lots of other features.

i have 'cloned' it to the hard drive. In fact, i started by tranfering all the files, (dostools all the packages) over parellel and then directly cloned it to the harddrive, i think it gave me three options, make disks, clone to harddrive, and mantience mode. since zipslack left me with 1 floppy with no bad sectors... i figured that direct install would be good. I would think it would do a lot swapping too, but the harddrive barely spins, I set it up with 16mb of swap file. It does have a 16 bit pcmcia slot, i think that a lot of newer cards wont work in it. The true reason i wanted linux, is to learn it on my trip to Thialand, i am leaving the 14th. I am also hacking an iopener, so i am thinking about midori also, though i think i will run it on my desktop once i get back. I have been checking ebay for ram... only 4mb cards, which i already have. The max ram for this machine is only 20mb, with a 16mb card, and 4 built in. How well does linux handle mutiple display...

Congratulations.

Note that MuLinux has some sort of special command that automates and "properly installs" the additional add-on disks. I think it is listed in the main "menu" (enter "menu" at command prompt). Of course, if your way is working, don't worry.

If you aren't getting much swapping, I wonder if you actually do have a swap file setup? The command to test it is "swapon -s" or you can just list it out of the proc filesystem using "cat /proc/meminfo". Either case, see if a swap file is listed.

Note that those memory PCMCIA cards will be slow because I believe the old PCMCIA slots are only 8 mhz or so (and of course only 16 bits wide). Your only real chance is to search the world for anyone selling old upgrades for that thing a cheap price. They should all be throwing them out by now!

I've used newer cardbus cards in an old 16bit PCMCIA slot before. Maybe I was just lucky, but it sure works with my Orinoco Wi-Fi card.

If you decide you need more than what muLinux gives you, you should be able to use your installed muLinux to install Zipslack. Because muLinux is built from an old shared library base, it will only run either old software, or "staticly compiled" newer stuff. To install zipslack, you need to run the ZipSlack install script (using Linux) that is buried inside the ramdisk (initrd file), but it will be a little bit of a challenge for you to learn how to get to it.

For your trip, I would go to www.tldp.org and grab copies of everything that looks interesting to you (HOWTO's, Guides, FAQs, and man pages. Then go to Slackware's site and grab the Slackware manual as well. This should be enough reading material to last for a really long trip. You might start with this little Unix quick reference guide I found at http://www.xminc.com/linux/linuxcheatsheet.pdf , I think you'll like it.

Multi headed displays are pretty new to Linux. I haven't looked into it but if you do an internet search you should find plenty of info.

I'm sure your laptop is too old to have dual video, the external video is just slaved off the main screen. Maybe you are talking about your desktop machine?

yeah, i was talking about my desktop's multi display right now i can have three moniters, if i free up an irq. The memory cards have theit own slot, not pcmcia, though it might be nice to have a fast flash card to swap off of. I also tried mulinuz on my desktop, didnt work at all. Do you think that mulinux (on the laptop)running quickly? it isnt, nothing has changed exept for the wks package

muLinux on desktop: What didn't work? Did the kernel not load? (as in did it freeze before you got the first message about muLinux). Did you get no video at all? Tell me about the hardware in you desktop. (I guess I'll try it on my 900 mhz Celeron / Intel BX440 / ATI-rage AGP video system)

"Do you think that mulinux (on the laptop)running quickly?"

Sorry, I don't understand this question. Are you saying that muLinux is still too slow on the laptop? I have it running on a '486 DX100 / 32 Megs RAM / very slow hard drive, but with all the addons installed, but a saved profile that currently has much of it turned off. It still takes over two minutes to completely boot up. It runs nice and fast once it is done however, I was just browsing the Internet with the vintage Netscape Navigator add-on with it last night. MuLinux does have a long and involved bootup procedure. Pure Debian and Slackware have among the fastest bootup times, but of course it all depends on what features are enabled too. My 900 Mhz Celeron boots into a Slackware 8.1 X-window manager in less than 30 seconds. It is just a little faster than it can boot Win98.

Your old '486 is slow anyway, but what is really killing you is the lack of RAM. What ever Linux you end up with on the thing, you will need to "fine tune" it by turning off all the services and processes and features that you don't need. Most Linux's (such as muLinux try to start up various web & mail servers, NFS, several virtual console sessions, console sessions out your serial ports, and various other things. Learn how to turn off the stuff you don't use. Also learn how to compile your own custom kernel that is optimized for your hardware and doesn't have a bunch of stuff sitting in memory supporting hardware and services you don't use. The default kernels are typically well over 1 meg, sometimes over 3, when fully uncompressed into RAM. They have a lot of features compiled into the kernel, you can remove the ones you don't need and reduce the size of the kernel.

PS: Learning Linux on old harware like this is "learning Linux the hard way", but it is rewarding in that you end up having to learn a lot just to get something to run. Most people these days just boot a Mandrake/Redhat/SuSe/Lycros/Xandros CD which usually installs as easy as Windows with a rich GUI environment and lots of application programs to choose from. You are being forced to learn things mostly from the ground up.

the desktop it a celeron 433 with a 1.5gb booting win98 and 13gb for files, it has a ATI 3D rage pro (primary) and a trident 9xxx (secondary) i have tried it on both hd's same error.I just upgraded the ram to 128. Also the computer i am working on right now i havent got any linux distro to load due to a ram type or apm. It is a Pentium 4 450 with 128mb and a Nvidia Riva tnt. about the laptop comment, i seemed like you thought it was loading quickly.

Yes, but *what* is the error? or how far does it get? Which distributions are you trying to load on these other machines?

With Linux, there always seems to be a way to get things to work, once you identify what is going wrong. I've gotton Linux to run on all sorts of strange hardware, even broken hardware! I've got Linux running on VIA Apollo-3 motherboard that has some of the DMA channels broken, and probably some other things wrong as well. I got the motherboard for free because it would not run *any* version of Windows. I've had Linux running on overclocked processors, that overheat if you try to run Windows on them. I even once installed Linux on a hard drive that was plugged into the CDROM port on an old soundcard.

I am back, i think i am giving up on linux, for now. mulinux took way to long to boot, it was around 4-5 minutes, and slack would just not run. Thanks for the tip on choice.com it is really helpful, now i can boot to dos with ease, and no waiting with my finger on the f8 key. now off to play with a pirated copy of win2000 from thailand

Not on that '486 - 8MB RAM machine you aren't!!! I'm not even sure if it will load on a 32 MB machine. I think MS specifies a 64 MB minimum. Even if it did, it would take several days to install and several hours to boot, but would overheat and burn out your hard drive in the process.

I do have it running on a 160 Mhz 486 with 64 MB of RAM. It runs okay, but is considerably more sluggish, especially booting, than Win 95 was on the same machine. I currently am running Debian "Sid" on it, which is as advertised, a tad bit "unstable". It tends to temporarily lose it's file system after being in the latest XFree86 + fluxbox for awhile for some reason.

Looks like your are simply stuck with MSDOS, unless you are willing to tweak a linux distribution to boot faster. You could probably get a Linux distro to boot to a shell prompt in about 30 seconds from when the kernel starts to load on that machine. To get to a graphical window manager will take a lot longer. You could try "MicroWindows" instead of Xfree86 however.

You could try Small Linux at http://www.superant.com/smalllinux or the screaming-fast A-Linux at http://linuxassembly.org/asmutils.html, but I think you might find both too stripped down and/or crippled for your liking. They're both single floppy boot Linux distro's but I guess you could build on them if you have the patience.

BeOS booted very fast on my 160mhz 486, faster than Windows. I don't know what it's minimum memory requirements were, It does have very limited hardware support, and is a dead OS anyway. Too bad, it was kind of nice and clean.

... and, just to repeat myself ;-)

Have you tried TinyLinux? (see post # 28)

Steve

The comment about Windows was just a troll, right? :-)

I'll second that suggestion. It looks good too. It is a lot simpler to figure out that muLinux is, it should boot a lot faster too because it isn't trying to all the wild stuff that muLinux tries to do.

maybe i will try smalllinux, and 2k is on a 433 celeron