I installed RedHat 7.1 on a Pentium 100MHz with a 1.9GB HDD or so (ancient relic hanging around somewhere, did it for fun) a few weeks ago. It doesn''t even have PS/2 mouse or keyboard ports, and the serial mouse is dead...

Just choose your packages wisely. I have GNOME installed (sucks without a mouse), along with quite a selection of other stuff. Linux is a compact system, regardless of distro.

I have slack 8.1 running on a P120 with 16MB, runs very well, surprisingly well, and copes with X without trouble too. I am using Flux as my wm .... I don''t think anything heavier would be a good idea. Truly, it''s smooth !

EDIT: Wow, I turned up this form the Slackware site (minumum reqs):

quote:
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Slackware Linux doesn''t require an extremely powerful system to run (though having one is quite nice . It will run on systems as far back as the 386. Below is a list of minimum system requirements needed to install and run Slackware.

* 386 processor
* 16MB RAM
* 50 megabytes of hard disk space
* 3.5" floppy drive
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Nice.. it really fits into only 50 MB?



could u post a link to this site ? ;-)

That''s probably without X, or emacs, or anything network, or... I''m sure you can get the base install quite small if you leave out all the fun stuff.

quote:

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Original post by Peon
I have an old Pentium 120 that I plan to take apart and resassemble, to get some practical experience with putting a computer together before I build my own. I'd like to put Linux on it, just to see if I can do it myself. What I'm looking for is a small and lean Linux distribution. The HD on the computer is only about 1.5 gigs, so I need something that will fit onto that. Also, since the processor is only 120mhz, I need something that isn't too processor intensive.

Can anyone recommend a lean distro that is not too processor intensive that I could install on my old machine?

EDIT: Something user friendly would be nice as well, if possible. I'm still learning how to use Linux, so a GUI would be nice as well.

[edited by - Peon on October 17, 2003 4:35:55 PM]

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Damn Small Linux: fits on 50 megs and runs fluxbox as it's wm. Pretty cool stuff. I carry a mini-cd with it everywhere and it can run off of an HD. It uses a smaller version of X. So it work great and runs fast. It includes Network, a simplified version of VI called nvi and a simplified version of Emacs called Zile. Also has XMMS for sound and *video*. A list of all the apps, although, it might not be up to date, i think it's missing the add-ons for version 0.4.10, can be found here

Damn Small Linux can be found here.

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[Cyberdrek | the last true sorcerer | Spirit Mage - mutedfaith.com][ Administrator & WebMaster GuLSE]

[edited by - cyberdrek on October 24, 2003 7:58:57 AM]

quote:

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Original post by Drevay
Running X on any *nix on a p120 is a painful thing, but it is possible.

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It takes 5 seconds to configure with the right tools and it does work pretty good. I used X for the first time on my 286 and later on my 486. Try telling me that it was hard. If some 9 year old kid, who doesn''t know crap about linux ( I''m talking about me here ), is able to configure X, I''m sure just about anybody can do it.

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[Cyberdrek | the last true sorcerer | Spirit Mage - mutedfaith.com][ Administrator & WebMaster GuLSE]

Try slackware. Way back when, I installed the 50 disk slackware on my old 486-66 w/256 color SVGA, running X and twfm + dial up modem support, so it''s possible. And it ran faster than windows 3.1. Of course, what did it run? Not much (at the time). Plan on spending a lot of time on it, no matter what you do. It''s very difficult to get linux 100% up and running on older hardware, esp. if its your first time. The over/under would be around a week or two.

You might think about adding additional memory if you can still find it.

What files do I need for a basic Slackware installation? I would like GNOME, GNU EMACS, and the basic files. What do i need? I need to get this for a laptop with no OS so the zip version won''t work, and the servers confuse me.

Scott Simontis
e-mail:ageofscott@comcast.net
AIM:ssimontis

hmmm, slackware 9.1 is out on two CDs now isn''t it... that sucks.

It''s probably a good idea to recompile the kernel to something minimal when you''ve installed the system, no matter what distro you end up using. The main problem you''ll most likely run into is RAM. If you need a graphical system, you may want to try XF86 3.x instead of 4.x, I''ve heard that the old version uses less RAM. Use a compact windowmanager, like fluxbox or blackbox, and basically just ignore everything which comes from recent versions of KDE and GNOME - those apps are usually excellent but take ages to load on old systems.
You could try an old version of SuSE (I think you can download 7.3 from their FTP servers) and just run YOU (YaST online update) to get the latest security patches.
If you''re proficient enough, try debian stable.

- JQ