Operating systems for really, really old computers

[Ripfox]

puppy4

[zmjjmz]

Well I am a gluten for learning with Linux. After a trip to a local recycle station, I am a owner of one Satellite 420cds. The machine has 16meg ram. The info on the web says they were shipped with 100-120mhz processors. The 1gig HD is cleaned (no os). The unit has a cd rom but bios does not boot to cd.

I have a desktop with floppy drive to mess with. The salvage yard has more units some with floppy drives. These drives interchange so I can't run both drives at the same time.

I have toyed with the DSL floppy boot image to see if I could get my desktop to boot with it. I don't want to spend another 40bucks for the second lappy with the floppy. Hope I am being clear.

I could not get the desktop to boot via the floppy. I tried several floppies all with the same problem. After the kernel loads, I get the limited shell response. Even with the DSL disk in CD drive at the same time.

So I guess I had several bad floppies or I am doing something wrong.

My question is this. Should I install a small os to the HD, then get it to boot the new os with cd rom support? Then try an os install via the cdrom. The laptop is without modem, ethernet, or usb.

What would be my best solution. This will most likely be a toy. Possible some kids games??? If I can get a cheap ethernet pcmcia card may be able to set up as a basic server?

What road shall I take to get any os onto the HD, provided I get a floppy drive? Then swap it out with the CD rom?

I think the salvage yard has 3 more machines. One may have as much as 48meg ram, wahoo!

Was forty bucks way too much? Battery holds a charge!

Google Smart Boot Manager, you'll appreciate it.
Also, DSL seems like a but much for that, how Linux savvy do you think you are?
If you think you'd be comfortable with some pretty hard stuff you can try http://www.basiclinux.com.ru
It fits on two floppies, runs well with 12MB RAM, and those computers will run it pretty well.
EDIT: Anyone know of a good OS for a 486 with 3MB RAM?

[Ripfox]

The 6.5 version of antiX is also light and works on K5/6 processors, and has a good collection of software. It's made to work well on low spec machines.

Tried it on my P1 166

Panic! CPU too old for this kernel

That's the message on the latest iso.

[DJiNN]

Tried it on my P1 166
That's the message on the latest iso.

Sorry to hear that. It's a shame, because it's a great little distro. Still, at least there's always Puppy eh?

[zmjjmz]

That's because antiX was compiled for i686, and a P1 is i586. If you can find a 586 build of antiX you'll be fine, but in my experience a P1 will be far too slow for antiX.
I would recommend DeLi or DSL for that machine.
EDIT: Does anyone know of an OS for 3MB or less? Minix 2 may be an option, but I'm more open to other options.

[anticapitalista]

Get antiX-M6.5 Spartacus, here:

http://mepis.gabston-howell.org/down...eleased/AntiX/

http://ftp.uwsg.indiana.edu/linux/mepis/released/antix/

ftp://ftp.ussg.iu.edu/pub/linux/mepis/released/antix

http://ftp.wustl.edu/pub/linux/distr...s/mepis/antix/

http://mirror.cs.vt.edu/pub/MEPIS/antix/old/

But as zmjjmz says, it will probably be slow.

[li10]

hey guys, this is off topic (this being an ubuntu forum) but it's a thread about OSes for old computers and well yeah here I go.

I'm setting up an old computer to run linux. It's only got 128 mb, ect. so I'm going for damn small linux. The hard drive is broken but the bios can boot from CD and "removable dev" which I suppose means removable device. I was wondering if this meant floppy drive or a USB flash memory stick.

I plan to put DSL on a memory stick and use it as the operating system.

Can somebody tell me if this'd work please?

thanks for reading.

[K.Mandla]

DSL will do that, but if it's an "old" computer, it might not boot from the USB port. "Removable devices" is usually a floppy or maybe a zip drive on an "old" machine. Can you tell us more about it? Model number? Manufacturer?

[li10]

DSL will do that, but if it's an "old" computer, it might not boot from the USB port. "Removable devices" is usually a floppy or maybe a zip drive on an "old" machine. Can you tell us more about it? Model number? Manufacturer?

there's no information on the case. Should I take a look inside or can I find out manufacturer information from the BIOS?

EDIT: after taking a look inside all I found out was that the CD drive was manufactured in february 2001. Assuming the drive isn't a replacement, I'm gonna assume the computer was made around this time.

[zmjjmz]

I think a 2001 computer would support that. I'm not sure, but I also think that Smart Boot Manager would support USB boots.
Edit: DSL is going to be quite fast for that. Try setting the boot option to 'toram'.