OS for Compaq Presario 1685

[nichos]

Hi,
Trying to install a small OS to run this old laptop.

Compaq Presario 1685, circa '98
Processor: AMD K6-2 380 MHz Data Bus Speed: 66 MHz
Ram Installed 32 MB moduled
Hard Drive: 4.3 GB
DVD-ROM

Burned in a CD “PUPPY-4.3beta1-k2.6.25.16-v423-SCSI”, tried to boot with it several times BUT all I get is:- “….Large checksome error Boot failed……retry”

Only once booted to a blue screen with a puppy, said waite 5secs, then two lines (forgot the text) with a few dots and nothing more, just hungs for hours.

Can anybody help please? …….nick

PS. I find diiculty in understanding the Download pages, which is what to download.
What exactly am I to download for a small OS to go in a CD?.

[stlsaint]

what came with it? you can try DSL

[nichos]

I just can't remember, it was a few months ago, it booted perhaps 95, 98 or even ME, but stupidly I tryed Ubuntu 8.10 I dual boot on the PC and hell broke loose.

Whatever it had was lost & now none of them will load so I thought of DOS first & then try ME, BUT... there is no flopy drive on it.

Downloaded UBDC & Dos 6.22 bootable but none seem to help me, as they claim on the net, to load Dos on CD. ( I have it on 3 flopys ).

Can I use the above to install Dos so that I can try to install Win98 or ME, which both need Dos first?

I was informed that this speck will not take Puppy or anything else of Linux.

With the 32mb module in it setup shows Sys.Mem 640kb & Ext.Mem 97280kb.

Inserted my old Dell's 128mb & then it's 64mb modules That make Dell 192mb Mem, in th Compaq and in both cases gave EXT Mem 640.

thanx ......nick

[spcwingo]

You can try Tinycore, DSL, Deli, or Slitaz. Although, most will be excessively slow...unless you can find some more RAM that will work in that machine. If you really want to give Puppy a go, try this version as it's not a beta, but the latest stable retro release. Here's the download link:

http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/puppylinux/puppy-4.2.1retro-k2.6.21.7-seamonkey.iso

Good luck, and just remember to burn at the slowest speed possible.

[rdzrdz]

I have an older version of Fedora running fine... (Fedora 4??)

Any luck with Ubuntu....