[expert] Trying to install linux on a screwed up 486 ;-)

[S. Newhouse]

Andrew Mitchell writes:
 > I've got an old 486 here that my friend wants to use as a
 > firewall/proxy, but I can't install either mandrake or redhat on it due
 > to the lack of ram (8mb) and it being a 486. On both, it stops at
 > loading 2nd stage ramdisk. It's quite screwed, at least for windoze use,
 > since it'll only boot with the hard drive set to slave, so I can't
 > install a UMSDOS-based floppy distro. Does anyone have any suggestions
 > as to what can be installed or what I can do to get mandrake onto it?
 > 
 > ps: I sent a message to the newbie list, and it appeared on the
 > archives, but I haven't got any msgs from the list since yesterday, even
 > tho i know there are some there.
 > 
 > Andrew Mitchell
Slackware used to work with 8 MB RAM, but I don't know about the
current distribution.  

 -sen