Hi, folks!
Ok, here's the machine: 133 MHz (yes, *mega*, not giga or tera) Pentium!
48 MB RAM, 1.8 GB hard drive. (This is a Compaq LTE 5300.) It currently
has a rudimentary OpenBSD installation -- it boots up, but X doesn't work
and I don't really understand how the system is put together. (It's my
machine for experimenting... and it has run Mandrake (many years ago when
it would actually install on a 48MB machine), SuSE, Debian, and about a
year ago I put OpenBSD on there, then forgot about it.) It has a floppy
drive and CD drive that *SHARE* a bay, and a NetGear Ethernet card in the
PCMCIA slot.
I got OpenBSD onto it via a network install floppy set. Previously,
Mandrake, SuSE, and Debian were installed by either putting it into
"sleep" mode and swapping the drives out, or passing "hdb=noprobe
hdb=cdrom" to the kernel when booting.
Since I am fairly used to the way Gentoo works now, I am thinking that I
could install it on this laptop, either using distcc to let my dual-P3
box do most of the building, or by using only binary packages. On the
other hand, Knoppix has its appeal as well, since (if I could only get it
to boot!) that would mean I could use the entire HD for just swap space
and personal files. Yes, running it from a 4x CD would be slow and
painful, but I wouldn't be trying to load KDE3 or anything... just
Windowmaker or icewm or something lighter.
I seem to have read that it is possible to install Gentoo from binaries
only, so can it be done without installing GCC? I know, why not just go
with Debian or something (after all, that's what Knoppix is based on)...
and the answer is that I already know how Gentoo is set up, and I'd much
rather have the same system on both machines, as that makes administration
and housekeeping easier.
BTW, I've just now found that I can (without changing a damn thing from
whatever was already in place on OpenBSD) get into my files on the laptop
using Konqueror and "fish://192.168.0.4/" -- so copying files to and from
the laptop will be easy, though I'm not sure if any boot disks I might
make on this machine will be able to handle ffs (OpenBSD's file system).
I *have* made a GRUB floppy, but when I boot with it and then swap out
the floppy drive for the CD drive, and try to boot a CD with (hd1,0), it
does not work. (The Knoppix floppy also does not work -- it says it
cannot find any CD drives and drops me to a horrible shell.)
All I really need is, say, 25--50 MB, or even less, for personal files...
and a laptop that can instantly become at home in any network (read DHCP)
or *without* any network, just for personal use on the road.
My question to those who, perhaps, have tried something similar, is:
Should I continue to struggle with Knoppix, or is there a good way to get
Gentoo on this thing?
My thanks in advance for any suggestions! :)
--
// Carl Hudkins :: Jabber [EMAIL PROTECTED] :: PGP 50238D9E
//
// "German beer is chemical-free / Germany's all right with me!"
// --"Why Aye Man", Mark Knopfler
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