Mandrake 8.2 on really old Micron Millenia Transport

[nuffer]

I'm trying to install Mandrake 8.2 on my old millenia transport laptop, but the CD-ROM drive doesn't read burned CDs, and it doesn't have enough memory to install via FTP or HTTP (it says I need 52MB of RAM, but I only have 48MB). I tried doing a hard drive install from a Windows partition, but again it tells me that I need more memory, and should try doing it from a linux partition (which I don't have).
To get the files onto my hard drive, I used an external CD-ROM drive (PCMCIA) that the Mandrake install disk (using the same disk image my friend did to install with the same external CD-ROM drive) won't detect.
I'm thinking about using Partition Magic to convert the Windows partition to a Linux partition, and running the install off of the partition that way, but I wanted to know if there's a better way, or if this has already given other people grief?
Thanks for your help

Paul

[mdwatts]

Have you checked to see what the minimum requirements are for Mandrake 8.2? Sorry as I don't use Mandrake, so I really don't know what they are myself.

They could be listed in a readme etc. on the install cd or on Mandrake's website.

If your laptop does not meet or exceed those requirements, you may have to install a older version or another distro entirely.

Why wouldn't the cdrom read burned cd's? They are after all just the normal iso9660 filesystem.

[nuffer]

Originally posted by WattsMD:
<STRONG>
Why wouldn't the cdrom read burned cd's? They are after all just the normal iso9660 filesystem.</STRONG>

I've seen this before, so I just thought it was normal. I've had a few different cd-rom drives (usually bought used - read: old), and some of them just won't read cd-r or cd-rws.

I thought it was common, so I didn't really pay it much mind. Is this something abnormal? (It would suggest a bad cd-rom drive, also something I could live with)...

I'm now looking into the Slackware distribution's option of ZipSlack. It requires a 386, 16 MB of RAM and 100 MB hd space... I'll write more later on if it worked out or not.

Thanks for your help, WattsMD :)

Paul

[nycon]

Hey,
The whole cdrom drive not reading cd-r/rws is fine. Some older cdroms have problems with r/rw's because their bottoms are darker than regular cds and the laser has problems getting a reading.

Nycon

[nuffer]

Hey, thanks for telling me about the CD-Rs. I had thought it wasn't a big problem.

Anyway, my solution to this laptop (partly because I'm a lazy slob, and partly to stay sane) has been to install ZipSlack (from Slackware, of course). It seems to work out okay, seeing as it's loading Linux off of Loadlin from a DOS partition.
I copied it onto my computer in Windows (eeeww) and then I followed the loadlin howto instructions to configure it to do a dual-boot kind of screen, and haven't seen problems since.
Thanks for your help everybody,

Paul