On Mon, 19 Dec 2005 17:29:25 -0800 (PST) J Merritt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I have an old laptop I wanted to try to get to work. > It came with Win 98, which I removed and replaced with > XP. However, the machine has these specs: > > PMMX 166 MHz, 64 MB RAM, 2 gig HDD > > and the HDD was too small to install SP2 onto the > machine. As a result, I am convinced that Linux is the > way to go. Don't know if Debian is the right package Debian is a distribution containing lots of packages > or not. Sarge might be too robust for this machine > particularly w/ HDD size limitations. Sarge should do just fine > The other problem I have is that the CD drive is not > bootable. Apparently the BIOS doesn't support it. I > tried to do a flash upgrade and it said "Battery must > be installed." So I gave up on that and am wondering > if I can create a bootable floppy with some > super-small distro of Linux and somehow get around > this that way. > > Does anyone have any suggestions? How can I get an old > notebook that can only boot from floppy or HDD to > successfully install Linux, and work within the limits > of the 2.0 gig hard drive size? I would need a > breakdown of the process, from creating the floppy to > installing the package onto the hard drive, preferably > from a CD. I hope I'm not reaching too far here. You can boot from floppies and do a net-install, no CD at all. Of course you can also use the CD if you want. Debian should run just fine in 2 gig, just select packages carefully (don't use the Desktop task, do the manual package selection). Don't use meta packages (they are just meant to install all packages of a 'suite'), select only the components you really need (the dependencies will be installed automatically), don't use 'with-recommends', probably no Gnome/KDE, there are very nice lightweight managers (i like IceWM) and don't install too much stuff at a time. Cheers Andrei -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
