Hello List. I want to run Linux on rather old PC. The PC is Pentium MMX 166 with 24M RAM, S3 Trio Video and 2,5Gb WD Hard Disk, motherboard is Intel 430 VX. I tried set up ASP Linux, but it hangs up during installation of packages (on ASP forum I was told that this distributive should work on my computer). Also I tried to set up Mandrake, but of cause it's failed die to low amount of RAM. Do I need older releases? But which ones should I try to use? Yes, I was reading a lot of FAQs and HOW-TOs, but I can't install anything at all. And I belive the problem is only in installation. Do I think right? What should I do? What distribution should I use? Can I setup Linux to my HDD on another PC so as it will be working lately when I plug it into my one? Any configuration hacks is not so terrible for me. I'm thinking now to run FBSD, but Linux certainly will be preferable. Can no more work with windows... Any experience?
I am unacquainted with "ASP Linux", but I would expect to be able to install an up-to-date distro (certainly Debian, the one I am most familiar with) on a system with 24 MB of RAM. You probably need a swap partition to make this work ... it's been some time since I actually tried to install with anything less than 48 MB (I did that a few months ago with a K6-300), so I'm not certain of the point at which swap becomes an absolute necessity ... evwen with 48 MB RAM, swap is a good idea.
So my first recommendation is that you try again with whichever distro you prefer, to make sure that it really will not install with 24 MB of RAM.
If ASP and Mandrake really do require more than 24 MB to install, I'd suggest you try either Debian or Slackware ... Slackware always used to be the distro of choice for small-memory systems, and it probably still is.
Whether the problem is "only in installation" or not depends on what you want to use the system for. Minimalist workstations can easily run in 16 MB RAM, and specialized Linux systems (like routers or X terminals) can get by with 12 MB, or even 8 MB if they don't use a RAMdisk.
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