Linux for old PC

Linux for old PC

[vh]

Hello List.
I want to run Linux on rather old PC.
The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard
Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it
hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this
distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up
Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I
need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?
Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install
anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation.
Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use?
Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working
lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so
terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly
will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?


-- 
Martchukov Anton aka VH                   mailto:vhlist@yandex.ru
ICQ: 155279978

"_Theory_ is when you know everything but nothing works.
_Practice_ is when everything works but no one knows why.
_IN THIS PLACE_ we're combining theory and practice - nothing works
 and no one knows why!"

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Re: Linux for old PC

[Ray Olszewski]

At 11:30 PM 6/14/2003 +0400, vh wrote:
>Hello List.
>I want to run Linux on rather old PC.
>The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard
>Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it
>hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this
>distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up
>Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I
>need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?
>Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install
>anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation.
>Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use?
>Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working
>lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so
>terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly
>will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?

I am unacquainted with "ASP Linux", but I would expect to be able to 
install an up-to-date distro (certainly Debian, the one I am most familiar 
with) on a system with 24 MB of RAM. You probably need a swap partition to 
make this work ... it's been some time since I actually tried to install 
with anything less than 48 MB (I did that a few months ago with a K6-300), 
so I'm not certain of the point at which swap becomes an absolute necessity 
... evwen with 48 MB RAM, swap is a good idea.

So my first recommendation is that you try again with whichever distro you 
prefer, to make sure that it really will not install with 24 MB of RAM.

If ASP and Mandrake really do require more than 24 MB to install, I'd 
suggest you try either Debian or Slackware ... Slackware always used to be 
the distro of choice for small-memory systems, and it probably still is.

Whether the problem is "only in installation" or not depends on what you 
want to use the system for. Minimalist workstations can easily run in 16 MB 
RAM, and specialized Linux systems (like routers or X terminals) can get by 
with 12 MB, or even 8 MB if they don't use a RAMdisk.

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Re: Linux for old PC

[James Miller]

On Sat, 14 Jun 2003, vh wrote:
> Hello List.
> I want to run Linux on rather old PC.
> The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard
> Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it
> hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this
> distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up
> Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I
> need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?
> Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install
> anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation.
> Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use?
> Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working
> lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so
> terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly
> will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?
>
>
Anton:

Privet. Po russki govoriu no, k sozhaleniu, ne xorosho otnoshus' k russkoi
klaviaturoi.  You need Vectorlinux.  I think it will run fine on that
machine.  It's based on Slackware, but installs very simply and gives a
pretty good default installation with some light desktops and gui apps (as
well as the usual console stuff).  It all fits in about 350MB of
diskspace.  It lets you choose an older Xserver as well (3.3.6, as I
recall), though it can install the newer one too.  I installed it on a
machine about like yours - P75 with 32MB RAM and it ran pretty well.  In
fact, amazingly well for an old machine like that.  I also used the s3Trio
card.  For best performance, you might want to go with Vectorlinux 2.0,
which comes with the 2.2.x kernel series (2.2.19, if memory serves).  3.0
will give you a 2.4.x series kernel.  Anyway, I always recommend this
distro for older hardware: it wins hands down in my book for ease of
install and usefulness of the finished product.  It strikes the perfect
balance between not installing enough by default and installing too much.
It's about a 200-300MB download, and you'll want to have access to a CD
burner to burn the iso.

s uvazheniem, James
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RE: Linux for old PC

[Riley Williams]

Hi VH.

 > I want to run Linux on rather old PC. The PC is Pentium MMX 166
 > with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard Disk, motherboard
 > is Intel 430 VX.
 >
 > I tried set up ASP Linux, but it hangs up during installation of
 > packages (on ASP forum I was told that this distributive should
 > work on my computer). Also I tried to set up Mandrake, but of
 > course it's failed die to low amount of RAM.

I can't comment on ASP Linux as I've never even heard of it, or on
Mandrake as I've never used it. I also can't comment on Slackware
as I've never succeeded in installing it.

I can, however, comment on Red Hat Linux as I have experience of it
from 4.1 through 9 inclusive. Here's a summary of my experience:

 1. RH versions up to 5.1 inclusive will install and run on systems
    with just 12M of RAM.

 2. RH version 5.2 requires 16M to install. However, once installed,
    it will run on systems with just 12M of RAM.

 3. RH versions 6.0 and 6.1 will install and run on systems with 16M
    of RAM.

 4. RH versions 6.2 through 7.2 inclusive will install and run on
    systems with 24M of RAM.

 5. RH versions 7.3 and later require more than 24M of RAM as they
    didn't install on my test system, which had six 4M 30-pin SIMMs
    in its six slots. I can't state an exact requirement as I run
    them on systems with at least 64M of RAM.

 > Do I need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?

Try Red Hat Linux prior to 7.3 as a starter.

Best wishes from Riley.
---
 * Nothing as pretty as a smile, nothing as ugly as a frown.

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Re: Linux for old PC

[Stephen Samuel]

Make sure you do a text-only install, as opposed to an X-Windows
install. 24MB is a bit small to do X without swap. This may be the
source of your problems.  I'd also suggest that you make your swap file
reasonably large (a couple hundred meg).

You never really said what this is for. are you intending to
run twm and Firebird, a text-only box, or do you expect to
shoehorn KDE into that thing?

vh wrote:
> Hello List.
> I want to run Linux on rather old PC.
> The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard
> Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it
> hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this
> distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up
> Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I
> need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?
> Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install
> anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation.
> Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use?
> Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working
> lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so
> terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly
> will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?
> 
> 


-- 
Stephen Samuel +1(604)876-0426                samuel@bcgreen.com
		   http://www.bcgreen.com/~samuel/
    Powerful committed communication. Transformation touching
        the jewel within each person and bring it to life.

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Linux for old PC

[vh]

Sunday, June 15, 2003, 1:07:48 AM, you wrote:

SS> Make sure you do a text-only install, as opposed to an X-Windows
SS> install. 24MB is a bit small to do X without swap. This may be the
SS> source of your problems.  I'd also suggest that you make your swap file
SS> reasonably large (a couple hundred meg).

Yes, the problem is that several installators (like Mandrake one)
can't (or I don't know how to) create a swap file for installation
process. For example in ASP (this is Russian RH compatible distributive)
swap is automatically created for installation if system detects a low
amount of memory.

SS> You never really said what this is for. are you intending to
SS> run twm and Firebird, a text-only box, or do you expect to
SS> shoehorn KDE into that thing?

Yes, I'm going to run such GUI applications. I'm not sure that on my PC
they'll be working stable. But I have experience with FBSD on a similar
box and I have no complains even about GUI!

Thank everybody replied. Soon I'll be able to download and
burn such staff like Vectorlinux (spasibo, nikogda ne slishal pro nego
ranishe) or Slackware or maybe RH. I will probably need RTFM
documentation again.

----
Martchukov Anton aka VH                   mailto:vhlist@yandex.ru
ICQ: 155279978

"_Theory_ is when you know everything but nothing works.
_Practice_ is when everything works but no one knows why.
_IN THIS PLACE_ we're combining theory and practice - nothing works
 and no one knows why!"

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Re: Linux for old PC

[cr]

On Sunday 15 June 2003 07:30, vh wrote:
> Hello List.
> I want to run Linux on rather old PC.
> The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard
> Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it
> hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this
> distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up
> Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I
> need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?
> Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install
> anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation.
> Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use?
> Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working
> lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so
> terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly
> will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?

If you do decide to go the disk-swapping route, then I'd say it's certainly 
possible to set up Linux on a hard drive on another PC, then swap the drive 
over, so long as the hardware in yours is fairly compatible with the other 
one.   You may need to 'hack' some of the config files, in particular  
/etc/XF86Config (or XF86Config-4) that drives the 'X' (GUI) 
windowing system, before X will work.   

For that reason I'd suggest selecting the 'text-based' login rather than the 
'graphical' login  (RedHat asks you which you'd prefer at the end of the 
install process.   Debian assumes you're going for graphical login and is 
rather less easy to install).   Incidentally, I've found that RedHat seems to 
work best with my S3Trio64V2 card, Debian works best with the on-board SiS 
AGP video.

*Do* make yourself a boot floppy! - as you'll probably find your PC won't 
boot off the hard disk straight away after you swap it in.   You may have to 
reinstall LILO or GRUB as bootloaders.   (And you should probably not let the 
install program set up LILO/GRUB for you at install time, you don't want to 
'upset' booting on the PC you're borrowing for the install.)

2.5 GB is certainly adequate for an install so long as you don't try to 
install 'everything'.    RedHat 7.2 or 9.0 will fit reasonably well into a 
bit under 2GB.

I can testify that 'system drive swapping' is quite practical, for some time 
now I've run several 2GB hard drives, I keep my data on the second and third 
hard drives (not that this is relevant to your problem), and when I wish to 
do an upgrade I whip out the 'system' drive, put in a spare 2GB drive, and 
install the 'new' system on that.  If it strikes problems or I don't like the 
new system, I just pop my old 'system' drive back in.    In the present 
context, the only 'hacking' I sometimes have to do is to the LILO or GRUB 
bootloader.  (I also have to modify /etc/fstab to recognise my other 'data' 
drives, but this won't apply to what you wish to do).

cr

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Re: Linux for old PC

[Chuck Gelm]

Any experience?

Dear vh:

 Does system have ATAPI IDE CD-ROM drive?

 Yes.  I've installed Slackware in smaller resource systems.

 SuSEv7.0 in Pentium-166-laptop with 16 M of RAM using fwvm95/fwvm2
window manager(s), Xwindows, I can use Netscape Communicator v4.77
with some swap thrashing. ;-)  I have since upgraded the laptop
to 80 M of RAM.  ;-)

I am currently working on installing SuSEv7.0 into
Pentium-120 with 40 M of RAM and < 2 G hd space,
 so far, I need more hd space for GUI.  ;-)

If you wish a GUI system (Xwindows), you may be limited
to a 'smallish' window manager; twm, fvwm2, fvwm95,...
Not KDE or GNOME environment. :-|

 I recommend setting up a swap partition of double your RAM.
(if you need more virtual memory than this, you need more RAM ;-)

 If you try Slackware, I will help.
I recommend Slackware v8.0 to start:
ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-8.0/

HTH, Chuck

vh wrote:
> 
> Hello List.
> I want to run Linux on rather old PC.
> The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard
> Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it
> hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this
> distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up
> Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I
> need older releases? But which ones should I try to use?
> Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install
> anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation.
> Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use?
> Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working
> lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so
> terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly
> will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?
> 
> --
> Martchukov Anton aka VH                   mailto:vhlist@yandex.ru
> ICQ: 155279978
> 
> "_Theory_ is when you know everything but nothing works.
> _Practice_ is when everything works but no one knows why.
> _IN THIS PLACE_ we're combining theory and practice - nothing works
>  and no one knows why!"
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-newbie" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at http://www.linux-learn.org/faqs
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Re: Linux for old PC

[Chuck Gelm]

List: Sorry for the extra bandwidth.  :-|

Dear vh:

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   From:  Chuck Gelm <nc8q@gelm.net>               3:49 PM
Subject:  Re: Linux for old PC
     To:  vh <vhlist@yandex.ru>

Dear vh:

vh wrote:
<snip> 

> I've found iso images only for 8.1 and 9.0

 Try:  http://gelm.dyndns.org/download/linux/slackware-8.0/isos/
get the 'install.iso' and burn it to a CD-R disk.  It should be
a bootable disk.

> Is 8.1 the point to start too?

 I have only been able to use 8.1 as an upgrade to 8.0.
I have not been able to install 8.1 or 9.0 to a 'fresh' system.

> Will I be able to use RPM? Or only tgz packages?

Claims to be able to use either.  Although I have only used .tgz.

HTH, Chuck

> 
> Thank you!
> 
> --
> Martchukov Anton aka VH                         mailto:vhlist@yandex.ru
> ICQ: 155279978
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Re: Linux for old PC

[Chuck Gelm]

vh wrote:
> 
> Thank you for your help, I think I'll go with Slackware.
> I've got an advice also to try VectorLinux (Slackware based
> distributive, but with easy installation) Since I don't angry a
> command line...I'm not sure.

 I do not know VectorLinux.

> CG>  Does system have ATAPI IDE CD-ROM drive?
> 
> Yeah, but 8x Samsung SCR-830.

 For install, I often copy the /slackware/* files over to a HD 
partition.  Then select HD media during install setup program.
It is much faster than CD-ROM install.  Although it takes some
time to 'cp /cdrom/slackware/* /dev/hda3/slackware/' ;-)

> When I tried to set up ASP, it stopped work at about 50% of installed
> packages and since that moment I would unable to mount/unmount or even see
> cdrom at all. Kernel complained about DMA not supported, but
> hdparm didn't solve the problem....hardware thing or bad distributive?

I do not know ASP.
<snip>
> CG>  If you try Slackware, I will help.
> CG> I recommend Slackware v8.0 to start:
> CG> ftp://ftp.slackware.com/pub/slackware/slackware-8.0/

 Then: 
http://gelm.dyndns.org/download/linux/slackware-8.0/isos/install.iso

HTH, Chuck

> I've found iso images only for 8.1 and 9.0
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