[SOLVED] Out of memory error installing to old Pentium laptop

A8ksh4 · 08-14-2024, 11:08 PM

I have a Toshiba 440 CDX laptop with an original Pentium CPU and 80MB of ram. It doesn't have a working floppy drive and no cdrom drive, so I'm attempting to start the install from the HDD by prepping needed files and stuff on the HDD on another laptop. And I'm referencing this page: https://docs.slackware.com/howtos:sl...stall_from_hdd

These are the grub menu entries that I've tried so far:

Code:

        menuentry "Slack 15 DVD Install" {
                insmod loopback
                insmod iso9660
                set isofile="/slackware-15.0-install-dvd.iso"
                loopback loop (hd0,msdos1)$isofile
                linux (loop)/kernels/huge.s/bzImage  load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0  rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s
                initrd (loop)/isolinux/initrd.img
        }
        menuentry "Slack 15 local ISO Extracted Install" {
                insmod gzio
                insmod part_msdos
                insmod ext2
                set root='hd0,msdos1'
                linux /ISO/kernels/huge.s/bzImage load_ramdisk=1 prompt_ramdisk=0 rw printk.time=0 SLACK_KERNEL=huge.s
                initrd /ISO/isolinux/initrd.img

        }

Both of these have the same result:

Code:

error: out of memory.

Press any key to continue...
Wrong EFI loader signature.
early console in extract_kernel
input_data: 0x0204d0ae
intup_len: 0x00913bb4
output: ...
output_len: ...
kernel_total_size
Physical KASLR using RDTSC...

Decompressing Linux...

And it goes on to make a bunch more errors afterward.

I'v also tried doing a complete install in a VM with similar CPU capability set, but didn't have the option to use a virtual IDE controller to match the laptop. It sort of boots but never gives me a prompt and has errors... I used a similar strategy with an old Debian build and it worked flawlessly.

Anyway, if anyone has ideas on how to get this install working, I'm looking forward to finding a modern-ish linux build that still gets security patches and stuff, and learning something about Slackware! (This is my first try with Slackware)

Tonus · 08-15-2024, 03:49 AM

I bet 80MB of ram isn't enough. Nowadays iirc the kernel on it's own is oversized for your specs

Edit:
Not really the kernel on its own though, see :
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/...kernel-take-up

Anyway a ram size problem for me

Quote:

error: out of memory.

pan64 · 08-15-2024, 04:00 AM

you need to look for a minimal kernel for this system, not the "huge" one.
I'm not really sure about that, but probably I would make my own one created for this hardware (and removing all the unnecessary stuff).

business_kid · 08-15-2024, 07:03 AM

A bigger problem I see is that the initrd is big, because it has busybox and the setup subsystem in there, as well as modules. vmlinuz=15MB, initrd=52MB on 64 bit. Frankly, I don't see a way of installing or running linux on that miniscule amount of ram. I don't have a 32bit install dvd to check. The only thing you might manage is DamnSmallLinux which is about the smallest there is. If that won't do, you'll need a good 1.44 MB floppy for Tom'm Linux. https://archiveos.org/tomsrtbt/ The installation script reformats the drive to 1.82MB and installs itself. Unsurprisingly, it's console only, & libc5. Nothing modern works.

Vintage ram is often offered for sale on ebay, or you may find someone specialising in it. But for the price of your ram, you could buy a modern sbc with a few gig of ram.

fatmac · 08-15-2024, 09:00 AM

Quote:

I have a Toshiba 440 CDX laptop with an original Pentium CPU and 80MB of ram

With such a serious lack of ram for Linux/BSD - maybe try something like FreeDOS + GUI on it - maybe with some DOS games, or music.

rokytnji · 08-15-2024, 10:48 AM

Never mind. Not relevant.

A8ksh4 · 08-15-2024, 11:57 AM

Unfortunately I'm allergic to DOS, so have to avoid that. :P I have debian 4 working on it with 2.6 kernel and could see how the newer releases do. Debian 10 might go, but 11 complains about a missing instruction and really needs i686 even though it has a 486 build. Those are all out of support though.

I'm inclined to think that Slackware 15 might work since when installed it in a VM and then booted that HDD on the old laptop, it booted, just with errors and couldn't get a prompt. Just need to reduce memory needs for the install environment. Is there a way to enable swap directly from grub?

I might try Alpine too using the trick to boot the iso from grub. I had issues doing a vm install in alpine and then booting the hdd in the laptop because ide support wasn't enabled after building in a vm with virtual sata disk...

kilgoretrout · 08-15-2024, 12:29 PM

Try Tiny Core Linux:

http://tinycorelinux.net/welcome.html

The minimum system ram requirement is 46MB.

business_kid · 08-16-2024, 06:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by A8ksh4

I'm inclined to think that Slackware 15 might work since when installed it in a VM and then booted that HDD on the old laptop, it booted, just with errors and couldn't get a prompt. Just need to reduce memory needs for the install environment. Is there a way to enable swap directly from grub?

No, Slackware-15.0 is compiled i686 in the 32bit offering. Slackware-14.2 is compiled i586, with some i486. But that dates from 2016. Slackware-14.1 is all i486, from late 2013, with kernel 3.10.x.

Given the number of things held in ram (/dev, tmpfs, /dev/shm), I hardly think a modern distro suits a 1990s pc. You probably have ISA bus, serial & parallel ports, all of which expect fixed I/O and only 16 interrupts. Hard disks are clunky & rapidly vanishing IDE, not Sata.If there is a pci bus, it's 33 MHz pci×1. Sata was years away. There's still some guy in the Excited States selling 1.44MB floppies. Even usb-1.0 was future.

I understand guys who restore vintage cars & motorbikes. Apart from the pleasure of owning a piece of history and seeing it boot successfully, I find it difficult to imagine practical uses for your pc. If you install XP, you can still get Space Quest 1-6 in a .rar which will work better on your pc. There's even walk throughs available.

fatmac · 08-16-2024, 07:16 AM

A couple of other possibles, MenuetOS or KolibriOS...

http://www.menuetos.net/index.htm

http://kolibrios.org/en/

enigma9o7 · 08-16-2024, 10:44 AM

Alpine.

A8ksh4 · 08-16-2024, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by business_kid

No, Slackware-15.0 is compiled i686 in the 32bit offering. Slackware-14.2 is compiled i586, with some i486. But that dates from 2016. Slackware-14.1 is all i486, from late 2013, with kernel 3.10.x.

Thx for the insight here! Similarly, I believe Debian 8, with the 3.16 kernel, is the latest Debian release that's compatible. Everything after that requires cmov instruction in the cpu.

There's nothing practical at all about this project, it's just for fun. I'd like to have something novel to let people play with at VCF west next year. If I can run tmux and a python interpreter, and it supports a PCMCIA 802.11b card, I can have some fun with it too. I might try space quest though...

@kilgoretrout - I'll check out tinycore!

Another I've looked at is AntiX linux, but I think it's no go without probably a custom kernel that needs less memory.

business_kid · 08-16-2024, 01:38 PM

Well, IIRC

i486 = 486 & compatibles
i586 = pentium 1 & compatibles
i686 ≥ pentium 2

There is an i786 category, but I never followed it.

Things like Slackware do supply source code of their versions & patches (I think). If you have linux on another box, you could recompile 14.2 as i486. Most of the packages probably have a slackbuild, a bash script to build the packages. Kernel is 4.4.14.

BTW, as you boot off the huge kernel witth so much compiled in, you mightn't need the initrd at all. In that case, you could substitute a tiny one

.

A8ksh4 · 08-16-2024, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kilgoretrout

Try Tiny Core Linux:

http://tinycorelinux.net/welcome.html

The minimum system ram requirement is 46MB.

Tiny Core Linux is the correct answer. It boots up to a responsive graphical environment on this old-arse laptop, has a recent 6.6 kernel, and a whole bunch of apps in the standard repo to use. Very slick!

@business_kid - doing a custom build of slack would be cool. I'll play with it in a VM some got get more familiar and see how it goes. I'm not clear if it's the kernel or initrd that's actually causing the out of memomry error on so many of these distros when attempting to start the cd install. Possibly getting the install environment extracted on disk with a swap partition enabled might help, but I'm not sure how to do that yet. :P

business_kid · 08-17-2024, 06:22 AM

Stick with the one that works. In fact, you couldn't add swap or swap out the initrd. The setup software is in the initrd.

Initially, the initrd is mounted on /. Swap is only added after / drive is added.