Installing Linux On Old Hardware?

cptdondo writes "I've got an old laptop that I've been trying to resurrect. It has a 486MHz CPU, 28 MB of RAM, a 720 MB HD, a 1.44MB floppy drive, and 640x480 VESA video. It does not have a CD drive, USB port, or a network port. It has PCMCIA, and I have a network card for that. My goal is to get a minimal GUI that lets me run a basic browser like Dillo and open a couple of xterms. I've spent the last few days trying to find a Linux distro that will work on that machine. I've done a lot of work on OpenWRT, so naturally I though that would work, but X appears to be broken in the recent builds — I can't get the keyboard to work. (OK, not surprising; OpenWRT is made to run on WiFi Access Point hardware which doesn't have a keyboard...) All of the 'mini' distros come as a live CD; useless on a machine without a CD-ROM. Ditto for the USB images. I'm also finding that the definition of a 'mini' distro has gotten to the point of 'It fits on a 3GB partition and needs 128 MB RAM to run.' Has Linux really become that bloated? Do we really need 2.2 GB of cruft to bring up a simple X session? Is there a distro that provides direct ext2 images instead of live CDs?"

Comments

How can I be racist? I LOVE NIGGERS! Here's why!

[Anonymous Coward]

HOW TO BE A WORTHLESS, VILE, AMERICAN YARD-APE!!!!

• Slink around, shuffling your feet and bobbing your neck like the lazy retard you are.
• Walk down the middle of the street because you don't know what a sidewalk is for.
• Hang out at carwashes and mini-marts because everybody knows these are the best places to be a dope, I mean dope.
• If you're a nigger bitch, shit three nigger babies into the world before 17 years of age. This assures that welfare money will support you, so your nigger men have more time to commit crimes.
• And give REAL honest black people a bad name.
• Oh yes, make sure each nigger baby has a different father.
• Bastardize the English language in the name of nigger culture.
• Make sure that several terms have multiple meanings and others have ambiguous meanings and that only 50% of nigger words are even complete words. Real niggers will know what you're trying to say.
• As a culture, make sure there are always more blacks in prison than in college at any given time.
• Hang out in packs of 10 to 15 and make sure everyone acts as annoying as possible. This helps to promote nigger individuality.
• Always talk loud enough so everyone in the 'hood can fucking hear you, and if they are niggers, they will know what your saying, bro.
• Wear clothes that are 10 sizes too big, making sure the pants hang off your ass.
• Park at least 5 junk cars in your yard while being careful not to use the driveway. It's OK to abandon them in the street as long as it's in front of someone else's crib.
• Exaggerate every motion, every tonal inflection and grab your dick a lot.
• Do drugs, sell drugs, make drugs. Okay, don't REALLY do this, but it IS what niggers do.
• Turn your backyard into a junk yard. If you don't have a backyard, turn your mother's into a junk yard.
• Travel around leaching off relatives, friends, salvation armies.
• Drink cheap wine and malt liquor every day, forgetting that "malt liquor" is just fortified cheap beer.
• If you're a nigger buck: fuck anything that moves, no matter how ugly she is. After two 40oz, even the ugliest, fattest nigger bitch will look good.
• Be charitable and covet fat, ugly white chicks. After all, they're niggers too. They can't help being so undesirable to white men that they have to fraternize with black dudes on a 20/20 trip. And white ho's are a special trophy too, especially the not so ugly ones.
• Spray paint everything in sight with scribbles that mean nothing to white people but mean things to fellow niggers (except niggers from another hood who will probably go after you for tresspassing on their turf).
• Use the term "motherfucker" in every sentence. It's one of the most versatile words in the nigger language, being a noun, verb, adjective and complete mini-sentence in event you run out of thoughts.
• Stop in the middle of the street, blocking all traffic to converse with fellow niggers and have complete disregard for everyone else.
• Overcharge customers at Taco Bell and pocket the difference.
• Drive your car while slouched so low that you can barely see over the wheel (gangsta drivin').
• Get a job under affirmative action. Then sit around all day pretending that you earned the position and that the other co-workers respect you. Whenever you fuck up, scream "racism!" & hope you get enough Generation X liberals in the jury.
• Never, I mean NEVER, take any responsibility for your actions. Always blame others including Asians, Latinos, Mexicans, and especially Whites for your sorry ass stupid lives.
• Be sure to get a dog, tie it up in the cold and mud and neglect it until it dies. Then start all over again. Cash must be used because you long ago fucked up your credit and checking account.
• Cram 5 generations into a two room government apartment and still be able to neglect your kids.

Then you too can be a true nigger, and anyone who finds any fault with anything yo

Re:Try Debian

[Anonymous Coward]

For some reason, the maintainers decided that it was absolutely essential for crap such as bluetooth support and gstreamer to be installed with the base system.

CLUE: A "base system" means you don't check the box that says "desktop system" when you get to the tasksel screen, that way you can apt-get only what you need after install. Dumbass.

Re:When you have a machine from that era...

[Reaperducer]

Considering how much the trend in Linux is to simply copy the look, feel, and functionality of Windows it's not surprising that it's also copied Windows' trend toward being bloated.

I haven't seen anything innovative come out of Linux in years. Everything is simply "copy this" and "copy that" from other operating systems.

It's sad when the most exciting innovations in the *NIX world come from Apple, and not from the grassroots open source community.

Re:When you have a machine from that era...

[fast turtle]

Guess you idiots can't read as he stated the laptop he's talking about pre-dates USB and doesn't have any. Nor does it have a NIC and the HD is less then 1GB

About the only solution I can see is a debian floppy installation that should allow you to get the PCMCIA nic working if drivers are available. From there, you can install a bare bones minimal system that'll do what you want.

Stop treating linux like an illigitimate child

[shovas]

This is something I've thought about for ten years. When people try out linux, or when techies try out linux, it's always on a spare machine which is inevitably worse for specs than their windows box. Inevitably they never fully make the switch.

So many years ago I decided I would treat linux well and give it the preferred hardware. Guess what, I was much more satisfied having a great system rather than something hobbling along. The user experience was obviously a total notch up and so you get a better impression of linux because it can then do so much more.

My opinion on this particular story is that it's completely bogus to think you'll approach something you'll make significant use of with the specs we see given. When you see a garbage system, hobbling along, ask yourself, what did I actually expect to come out of this? Something almost as good as my dual-core windows desktop? Come on.

Just try it. Give linux your windows hardware and put windows on your worse, spare hardware. See how it feels when the shoe's on the other foot. Not so fun anymore.

Now, perhaps something constructive. Why bother with this old machine when you can dumpster dive for better *easily* or you could buy a sheeva plug for $99?