Just installed Slackware 9.0 for the first time on an old 486 pc with 1.9 GB hd. When I run xstart from root it seems to start as there are a few messages across the screen quickly, then the monitor goes blank. The hardrive churns a little more then nothing. I am stumped?

Need a lot more info. How much RAM, what kind of video card, how much video memory, etc? And it should be 'startx'. Do you go right back to CLI or is it black and you have to ctrl-alt-backspace? And what does... crap, I forget what it is. /var/log/XFree86.log or something - or any of the various other files X spits out - say?

I tried to run X on a 486 and it worked, but it wasn't pretty - or usable. Then again, I have a 102MB hard drive and 8MB RAM. If you've got as much more RAM as you've got hard drive, we can rule that much out.

486? With X? INSANITY! Get a Pentium or better...

With plenty of RAM, and downgrading X to
3.3.7 ... why not?

Cheers,
Tink

I got this PC for free, so as far as I can tell it is a 486 and the video card only has 1MB of RAM. Not sure how much RAM the machine has. Is there a command in linux that will tell me?

What I don't get is that in computer stores like micorcenter they advertise these old used 486s as great for linux boxes. I just happen to get one from a family member for free and it has been pretty tough getting linux on there. What's the deal? Is it just that most of the distros are so gui heavy that you need a Pentium or better? I figured if the machine could run Win3.1 it should be able to run linux and x windows.

Making it a linux box doesn't automatically mean running X. The newer versions of X can be pretty memory intensive ( although, I have run X in 8 MB of RAM with pretty good success). Check out this thread for a little insight on running stripped down versions of X on older systems.

That being said, that box is still useful as a command line system, and if all you want is web/email then CLI can do that just fine. I use links (or is it linx?) on an old 486 to surf the web, and it suits me just fine.

One other thing to think about, what window manager/ desktop environment did you select when you installed slack? If you picked KDE or GNOME, then that might be an issue. Try blackbox or fluxbox. Much lighter weight, and better suited to running on your system.

slight

Thanks for the tip on the other link...

Ya, I really don't have too much planned for this box. The goal was to learn about linux and see if I could get it installed on the box and put it on my network. After that I would figure out what to do with it next.

Yes, I did the full package install for slackware. I think it installed KDE and Gnome. I will try uninstalling those packages and try out blackbox or fluxbox.

thanks,

Fal

On a related note - whilst everything else is working great since I installed Slack 9.1, X Windows is slooooow and crashes me back to the command prompt on a regular basis. Regardless of window manager - FVWM2 is as bad as GNOME.

Is this likely to be down to my lowly 64MB of RAM, or should I be looking for other causes?

part of the RAM thing is How much Swap you have mounted. I don't even remeber How much I am useing with on my computer 133mz Cirx Pocessor 32 meg of Ram and I have a 3 and 4 gig drive. 4m\b Vid card. I am useing X with Gnome as I am posting this. It takes a good min or so from when I Type StartX to when Gnome Displays on the screen .. X has Curently Been Loaded and Running for the past 6 days strait with no problems.

BTW if anyone has much of a Sujestion on how to make X start Faster I would like the comments. Ohh and I started with slackware 7.1 becuse it was the only one that I could get to boot off the CD but have upgraded to 8.1 and I may upgrade to 9.1 befiore to long.

I have also been running Linux for 2 weeks and after Installing Slackware Trying Deb. and then reinstalling Slack I have had no problems ..

128MB of swap.
I would leave it running, if it didn't keep crashing.. I generally shut down when I'm finished at the moment as it's not stable enough to bother keeping it running..