[wplug] Barebones Linux

[Bryon Gill]

I've got debian stable with a 2.2 kernel on a 66mhz 486 epson laptop with 
8MB ram, it works reasonably well.  I installed it from floppies then 
apt-got what I could fit on the hard drive over the network.  No X on this 
bad boy, but I did get somehow get the svga linux port of doom working on 
it briefly :)  I upgraded to unstable with a 2.4 kernel and the machine 
became almost unusably slow.  This was a year ago or so, stable has 
probably changed since then.

Debian from floppies + apt-get over the network is still probably your 
best bet though.



On Tue, 2 Dec 2003, Eric C. Cooper wrote:

> On Tue, Dec 02, 2003 at 12:42:28PM -0500, Weber, Larry A wrote:
> > I need a distro of Linux that will run on an old 486 laptop (500 Meg HD, no
> > CD).  Command line only.  The only apps I really need are gcc, gdb, Perl,
> > and vi.  Ruby would be nice.  An ethernet port (pcmcia) is possible but not
> > desirable.  I used ZipSlack awhile ago in a similar situation but it did not
> > come with gcc.  With only a floppy drive (I could add a zipdrive), adding
> > more apps will be difficult.
> 
> I am happy with Debian on an old laptop (Pentium I, but otherwise similar).
> It's easy to install a minimal system from boot floppies, but then you'd
> need the network connection (or CD drive) for the rest.
> 
> A key issue is how much RAM the machine has.  Anything less than 20MB
> will be pretty painful.
> 
>