[CCd to -release - is the release manual up to date?] Hi Gary,
On Sat, Mar 14, 2009 at 11:29:46PM -0400, Gary Lawrence Murphy wrote: > I just downloaded > http://debian.yorku.ca/debian-cd/5.0.0-live/i386/iso-cd/ and tried an > install on a 1998-vintage Compaq Presario 1210; the Live boot fails on > loading the Linux kernel, citing an invalid instruction error That is some really ancient hardware! :-o > -- if I'm not mistaken, invalid instruction could only happen if the > kernel or some module of the kernel is NOT i386 My guess is that the error happens because of changes to the i386 instruction set that were added since the non-MMX Pentium in your machine came out. In Debian 3.1, we enabled the generation of optimized code which made newer machines faster, but at the same time caused really old machines to stop working with Debian. This page claims that things should still work with your CPU, but maybe it is out of date: :-/ <http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s01.html.en#id2841088> Even if this had not been done, installation might still have failed on that machine because the Debian installer needs quite a bit of RAM. <http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/ch02s05.html.en> claims 44 MB, but again I think the figure is actually higher today. So unfortunately the standard Debian installer is not the right choice for you. Try a distribution specialized for low-spec machines, e.g. <http://damnsmalllinux.org/>! Once installed, you may be able to convert it into a normal Debian installation. Cheers, Richard -- __ _ |_) /| Richard Atterer | GnuPG key: 888354F7 | \/¯| http://atterer.net | 08A9 7B7D 3D13 3EF2 3D25 D157 79E6 F6DC 8883 54F7 ¯ '` ¯ -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-release-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org
