Hi,

This mail of mine might seem wierd these days, so beware! :-) But I am
indeed serious.

I have a 386 machine with 4MB RAM and 4GB hard disk. I was using slackware
linux (kernel 1.2.3)
on this machine for quite some time, but then I had to remove it for my
project work. Now that I have
a new machine, I want to re-install slackware linux 2 (that's what is
possible at the most) on it.

My first two attempts failed because I think I massively goofed up in
partitioning my HD. I do not have
the old partitioning scheme that I used with my machine earlier.

I have following questions/requests for the interested folks:

1. Can somebody tell me appropriate partitioning scheme? I searched
linuxquestions archives and got one thread, but it also has win98 (which
was to be retained) so it's not helpful to me.

2. I forgot how I installed lilo (MBR/first sector of boot dist) etc. So
can somebody tell me how I should install LILO?

3. Is anybody interested in helping me through installation?

Thanks,
Atul.

You know when a partition scheme is asked, you either get -0- responses or about a gazillion. For a 4gig I would keep it simple encase you need some room that another partition has, and allow for additional memory. One of the two, your choice.
a:
/ - ext2 - all but 256meg swap
swap - 256 meg

b:
On second thought, go with a:.

During install you will be asked about the boot loader. One of the choices is the MBR (last one IIRC) and it says "possibly dangerous" That's the one. The setup will do all the work for you.

We are probably a little confused-- some questions:
Are we talking about 2 machines here or just one? a 386 and something else?
As far as I know a 386 will not run win98 very well. (min requirements for 98 are p1 w/16 mb ram - and will run like crap)
4 gig is plenty of room.... How much does win 98 take? do you need windows?


Any reason it has to be slack 2? (even 2.6.8.1 has support for 386)-- what do you want to do with this machine? Its a little unclear from your post.

This hardware is really only good for a dedicated router or dedicated firewall with a very minimal install. (Posibly a static page local webserver, or dedicated ftp server)

I read it as; the Win98 came from an example in another thread, in which he can't use since he doesn't need to dual boot. And he moved his project to the second box and reinstall Slackware on the (original) first box, with version 2 being the latest he (has) can install on an old 386/4.

'course, that's just how I read it. These days with all the GUI it may be small, back in it's days the 386/4 was doing some heavy stuff, and can still do it.

Sorry for the confusion.

I have 386 machine with completely empty 4GB HD and I want to install SL2 on it.

I read the reply about the partitioning scheme. Why I asked this question risking
-0- or zillion replies is that my earlier scheme doesn't seem to work. Earlier I
partitioned it something like this:

/boot about 1MB
/ 1GB
/usr 1GB
/home - rest of the disk.

There was not a single byte that got installed using this configuration! I was so
surprised! BTW, hard disk is a-okay as I installed DOS 5 on it later.

You need more space in /boot, since just a kernel is over 1MB.
I think you should install slkackware 8.1 as it was the last that was compiled for i386. Since you have DOS running on it, you could even install zipslack on the same partition as DOS.

Thanks to all those helped me by replying my post.
I am going to begin installation this weekend. Unfortunately, I can't install SL8x as I am stuck with 4MB of RAM.
Will update again after installation (if it succeeds) or if I face problems.
Thanks again!

Successfully installed slackware linux 2.2 (kernel 1.2.3) on my 386 PC. Only a small
problem now is that I could not install LILO on MBR (still trying).

Can you install it to a floppy?

Sorry for the delay in replying post #9.
For time being, I have created a boot floppy and have been booting the linux that way.
When I try to install lilo in MBR using 'lilo' command, I get warning messages compaining
about big cylinder size (but then I thought they are just warnings). Is that the reason why
I am unable to install lilo in MBR? Any work-around for it?
Thanks in advance!