_very_ lightweight install

[Big_Croc7]

Really? ah...

I haven't been able to try it yet due to hardware issuees, but assuming I get those fixed, any other suggestions then? would an old version of Debian work, if I can find a 10-year-old version anywhere?

All I need the system to do is connect to another machine, then login via xdmcp and use it as a terminal. I guess my network card dosen't support pxe booting (plus that seems like a whole world of extra work!) What's the absolute minimum I can use? DSL takes ~24Mb RAM, from what I've heard.

[Cyvros]

Really? ah...

I haven't been able to try it yet due to hardware issuees, but assuming I get those fixed, any other suggestions then? would an old version of Debian work, if I can find a 10-year-old version anywhere?

All I need the system to do is connect to another machine, then login via xdmcp and use it as a terminal. I guess my network card dosen't support pxe booting (plus that seems like a whole world of extra work!) What's the absolute minimum I can use? DSL takes ~24Mb RAM, from what I've heard.

Sorry to revive an old thread, but...

DSL is small and very light-weight (it has a 50 meg size restriction, so one downside to it is that it doesn't use the latest version of the kernel - 2.4.x, I think), but if you really want something basic, you could look at a floppy-sized distro like FDLinux or muLinux (as far as I can tell, both of these can run on as little as 8 megs of RAM). Wikipedia has a good list.

Hope it helps.

[Big_Croc7]

Reviving a thread's fine

Thanks for the links - I might give mulinux a try, don't think I'd heard of that one before.
DSL's too big I think though, and Fd linux looks like it's just designed to use an old PC as a router or similar.

[Shazaam]

Try this--
http://www.toms.net/rb/

Runs off of 1 floppy

[Big_Croc7]

That's a lot of stuff on one floppy

thanks, might check it out... don't think it has an x server though, but it still looks cool. cheers!

[tukuyomi]

You're kidding right? That's barely enough for text-only, forget about any X server. You have way too little RAM for anything else, and it'll take hours to install a text system.

CD

My experience can tell that Windows 95 can run very fine on it, with graphical installer, graphical bootsplash and graphical desktop, YES!. Could Linux be beaten on this field...? I'm searching too how to revive an old dusted PC, what about Slackware anyone?

[Big_Croc7]

hmm... the thing is, I'm not sure as there's much that this computer could do on its own any more that would be terribly useful... but if I can use it as a terminal, it would make a quiet, cool and energy-efficient substitute for a second pc. Getting a terminal running seems much easier with linux (at least, for me anyway )

[CREEPING DEATH]

The Debian Releases page has links going back to 2.0 that would possibly work on a 486 with 8mb RAM.
Win95 will not work well on a 486 with 8mb, and Linux has come a loooonnnnnggggg was since 1992 or whenever the machine in question was made. My 90Mhz PI has 24mb and is slow.
DSL is based on 3.0, 2.1 was current in 1999.
Expect a very long install time even using an obsolete version of Debian. I know the text installer on 3.1 won't run on 8mb, I'd realisticly use 2.0 on a machine that old and try to find some RAM somewhere.
ETA: I'm not sure the ISOs are still available, I can't find them on Debian's site any more. More importantly, Synaptic certainly isn't on the older distro, Aptitude isn't on the older distro and I'm not sure apt-get is there either. It may just be an exercise in futility.

CD