--- In [email protected], "relztrah" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> I have an old Compaq laptop with a small 1 or 2 GB HDD, 128 MB of RAM
Besides Damn Small Linux, which you reference in your original post, I
would also try Puppy Linux and Feather Linux. Try the LiveCD's first
just to be sure they will boot up on your hardware. I have gotten all
three of these Linuxes to run on 75MHz P-1 desktops with 64MB of RAM.
I'm a little worried about the hard drive capacity; other lightweight
Linuxes, like Morphix, and even middleweights like Monoppix, LinuxMint
and PCLinuxOS, might otherwise work on your hardware but won't fit (as
is) in less than 2300MB (2.3GB). Pruning out the unnecessary elements
of the distribution is possible, but way too technical for a newbie.
Hell, I wouldn't try it myself!
In fact, if you can get PCLinuxOS to install, that might be the best
way to go, it's very newbie-friendly, and will run on 128MB RAM. But
definitely try the other three as well.
The setup defaults may want 2-3x your memory size set aside on the HD
for the swap partition; to conserve your already-limited HD capacity,
I'd say manually adjust that down during the install process (you
should be given the option to) to the minimum, exactly the size of
your memory (128MB) or slightly more, say 192MB.
Some Linuxes will by default set up separate partitions for /home and
everything else. Or sometimes, more old-school, separate partitions
for Don't let it! You don't know where you're going to need the space
more, and that balance may shift from time to time, so creating a
single monolithic partition for everything is the way to go. Watch
your options during installation!
> I have a Netgear wireless laptop PC Card so I would need a Linux driver
> to use it. Is that a possibility?
Well, it's possible, I'll say that. The older the hardware itself
is, the better the odds that it will be recognized 'out of the box' by
current distributions without you having to do a bunch of command-line
stuff. But it is still a dice-roll. This is again why I suggest
trying several distros; if one doesn't find the card and recognize it,
another might. And if you find a Linux you like that nevertheless
doesn't quite get the wifi card working, going to help sites for that
specific Linux (rather than a general site like this one) might get
you the look you want (FeatherLinux, for example, is a little cartoony
for me, but you might like it) AND the hardware recognition you need.
Worst case, you have to do some arcane command line work setting up
your wifi with NDISWRAPPER and the windows driver for the
card...understanding not required, but attention to detail is ;-)
> I'm a total newbie, and my eyes glaze over when I hear about GRUB,
> SUDO, or any other dirty four-letter words. So please keep that in mind
> in your reply.
You'll probably want to buy a book along the lines of "Dummies Guide
to Linux". That'll help you with SUDO, LS, MKE2FS, PS, and other
dirty words ;-) GRUB isn't so bad, working with that is mostly just
editing a text file (only as root -- SUDO GEDIT /BOOT/GRUB/MENU.LST)
But honestly, it's the commands that vary in usage (or existence) from
distro to distro, like XCONFIG, XORGWIZARD, etc., that you'll more
likely need help with. Once again, this is where distro-specific help
comes in. The Internet Is Your Friend.
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