light weight linux

Mark Hensler's picture

He has: 4,048 posts

Joined: Aug 2000

I'm trying to setup another *nix box to play with. It's an old Pentium 100Mhz with 48MB RAM and a 1GB drive. What can I install that will fit?

I tried putting in RedHat 7.2, but it complained about the RAM ammount and quit. I think it was Mandrake 8.2 gave me a kernel panic (tried to install from DOS, it wanted win32).

A GUI would be nice, but I realize that it is a long shot. I'm really just looking to gain more experience with different versions of unix/linux.

Mark Hensler
If there is no answer on Google, then there is no question.

Mark Hensler's picture

He has: 4,048 posts

Joined: Aug 2000

hmm... the mandrake gave me an error when trying to run
D:\dosutils\autorun.exe

So now I'm using dosutils/rawrite.exe to make a floppy with images/cdrom.img. Getting ready to boot that floppy.
....
success: I've got boot, and the install is running

But I still want to try other versions of unix/linux.

Mark Hensler
If there is no answer on Google, then there is no question.

They have: 601 posts

Joined: Nov 2001

Hi Mark!

I would try out Debian => http://www.debian.org/ It is based on Linux and they are very similar but it's not technically Linux. It's what a lot of hosting companies use as it's very powerful and stable as a server. I love it! And you can pick and mix your package to only have the things you need, so you can start with a small installation - RedHat tens to throw everything at you which chokes a lot of older machines.

- wil

mairving's picture

They have: 2,256 posts

Joined: Feb 2001

It all really depends upon what you are planning to do with it. If you are planning to run KDE or gnome, forget it. But it will run very nicely without the gui. I have a Pentium 100 32M RAM with no hard drive that runs quite well as a router using Linux. I would just get an older version around 6.2 or RedHat and it should work fine. I tend to prefer Slackware and my webserver at home runs Slack 7.2 on a P-200 with 64M.

Mark Irving
I have a mind like a steel trap; it is rusty and illegal in 47 states

Mark Hensler's picture

He has: 4,048 posts

Joined: Aug 2000

thanks guys

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