Linux on 386 laptop?

[xerid]

How can I install linux on a 386 laptop.
it only has a floppy drive.
is there anyways to create a boot disk what will install from itself?

please help

[RageAHolic]

I just installed Debian Slink 2.1 on my 486SX/33, 4MB RAM, 200MB Hard Drive via floppy.

There are installation instructions in the following directory on my Debian 2.1 CD:

/install/install.en.txt

READ THE WHOLE THING (printing it out is a good idea)!!! Specifically read the section on lowmemory systems.

Floppy images can be found here: /debian/dists/stable/main/disks-i386/current

The reason I went with Debian 2.1 was because I couldn't find a the lowmem installation routine equivalent in Potato. I'm just using it as a means of messing around in the console and vi text-editing, so I don't really care which kernel it has or how old it is (I know that it's old)...I really just wanted to see if it would work or not.

No X...and not much else...but it was pretty fun nonetheless.

I accomplished it with only the Installation document from the Debian CD...it's not that bad actually.

A 386 (RAM?) is really pushing it...your mileage may vary.

You might also want to look into "floppy-distros"...I've never used one, don't really know the name of one...but I know that they exist.

[irlandes]

Originally posted by RageAHolic:

...You might also want to look into "floppy-distros"...I've never used one, don't really know the name of one...but I know that they exist.

LOAF. FLOPPIX. HAL91. MARTIN'S LINUX. tomsrtbt. DUALIX. floppyfw. It depends on what you want to do with it. Some of these give you ftp capability; floppyfw makes a firewall.
http://www.cotse.com/miniunix.htm
http://www.lwn.net/2000/0914/dists.php3

There may be more if you start following links. I like Martin's linux Mandrake 6 because I finally made my special app work, due to late kernel.

[xerid]

will these install on my harddrive.
i am looking to install on the hd from a floppy.
thank you

xerid

[atlatl1]

<atlatl1 slaps the http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif Slackware 7.1 http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif CD and checks FAQ's>
Yup, Slack 7.1 will install with floppies. SOME of the "series" are too big for floppies, but the .tgz's are generall NOT. Just get LOTS of floppies!! (re-use them??) Do you have a NIC in the laptop? You could just do the Slack "A" series, get the "N" .tgz's installed and then connect to your local network and install anything you want! DO recompile the kernel for 386! It'll run better. You may have to do that on another machine. The last time I compiled a kernel on a 386 it took over 9 hours!! http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/eek.gif There ARE advantages to the newer chips after all! I'm making a lot of assumptions about your equipment here. Hope some of this helps.

------------------
"Bah! Conan! What is best in life?"
"To have the minions of Micro$oft flee before you!
To burn their partitons to the ground!
And to have fresh-ground coffee served to you by their women!"

[xerid]

Ok, install a new operating system won't work. I tried various versions of small
linux distro's, and none of them work,
"not enough memory"

so, I was thinking. Right now I have dos running on it. here are my two idea's.
does anyone know how to connect to a tcp/ip network through a serial port, but so that the serial port is transparent. I want to add it to the network through a hub, and I have serial<->rj45 converter.
OR
does anyone know how i can make it a terminal machine, using the same idea of the serial port being acting as a network card.

i thought about using SLIP, on the laptop, but 1, i cant get an operating system installed, and 2, i wouldn'y be able to hook it up to the hub(the tcp/ip network) directly, right?

xerid

[ph34r]

You need at least 4mb of ram. Get something like smalllinux (smalllinux.netpedia.net) and boot with it. You can then make a small (10mb or so) ext2 partition. Copy the entire directory structure of the smalllinux system to that new partition. Get a copy of the kernel it uses, and boot using loadlin to that small linux install. Now you can make another small partition, and copy the root disk for Slack (or deb's equivalent) to that. Boot with the install disk, and specify that the root=/dev/hda2 or whatever it is. You can then go on to install.

This is basically the 4mb Laptop Howto, and it worked for me (on a 486sx33 w/3.75mb ram).

[xerid]

I tried SmallLinux, and it said it couldn't install because I had less than 2M.
i ran mem under DOS, and it only shows 640K
BUT hihmem.sys is installed, so it must be right.
so, assuming i have less than 1M ram (don't know how true that is, no bios setup to check either), what are my options.
i dont care if its a dumb terminal or not, but even small distro's wont install.
if i have to , i'll keep Dos, but my main goal is to get network access through the serial port, but connected to the hub like a regular device

xerid


[This message has been edited by xerid (edited 09 November 2000).]

[ph34r]

Nope, you will be stuck with dos. I do know that there is a smb client you can get for dos, and there are some tcp/ip things you can do, but all that is going to be hard to find nowadays.

Good luck.

[RageAHolic]

Agreed...even the smallest floppy-based distros and Debian/Slack lowmem floppy installations require a MINIMUM of 4MB RAM.

Less than that and it will choke on anything you throw at it...boot disk, root disk, drivers...installation via NFS, FTP, CD-ROM.

Installations on a system with 4MB RAM are probably going to start being unsupported, as they are in Slack...anything less than that and I think that you are out of luck.



------------------
...your friendly neighborhood RageAHolic (http://www.angelfire.com/electronic/RageAHolic/index.html)

Rage fueled by: AMD Athlon