On Sun, Nov 18, 2001 at 03:01:58PM +0000, Tom Breza wrote: > > And suddenly derZiegelmann had this magical idea: > > > i got a ibm ps/2 n51sx recently (by accident ;-)) with win 3.1 installed > > > on > > > it. now i'm wondering if it is possible to install debian on it. if it is > > > possbile then i have another problem, because the laptop only has a > > > floppy > > > drive. is there a version which could be installed from floppy? or can i > > > split the whole bundle manually? > > > > u can copy base system on floppy and install from it, i didit, becuse my > pcmcia did not work streight away, when I finish instalation of base > system I add pcmcia network card and rest of installation I put over the > network :P
I did a floppy + network install on an 8MB Compaq Concerto recently and it was tremendously slow. I can't imagine trying to install a full system from just floppy. I got a prior version running on an Omnibook 300 with 4MB a few years back and that was painful too. Hope your project is worth the trouble. I doubt if potato or woody are even possible in 2MB- the initrd ramdisk would eat up all your memory right away. The only way I can see to install debian would be to get swapspace set up from the get-go. You might find the 4mb-Laptop HOWTO useful. http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/4mb-Laptops-4.html Another route might be to adapt one of the projects aimed at handheld linuxes. The intimate project for the Compaq IPAQ plans to put a full debian system on a limited handheld device. http://intimate.handhelds.org Linuxes or even smaller machines include ucLinux and ELKS. ###
