Linux on 486 Thinkpad?

[Citsport]

Hi!

I am wondering, if there is any way of installing Linux to my thinkpad. Model is 345C, and I haven't found any information on it from linux-laptop or anywhere else.

Specs are:

486 DX4 at 75mhz
8 megabytes of RAM
540 meg HDD
10,4" TFT

Display adapter os propably some of IBM's own. Is it possible to have for example linux with kernel 2.2 and older KDE to work with this?

[bdg1983]

I doubt that even KDE 1.1.2 would run at all with only 8MB memory.

You will be able to at least install a older distro version. Try one of the lightweight desktops. There should be some suggestions in the 'How I did it' forum.

[Shadoglare]

I'm currently running Debian on a 486/25 laptop with 4MB RAM - no Xwindows right now, but eventually I plan to see if I can get TinyX to work on it (after installing base Debian I only have 50MB to work with left - only a 120MB hard drive).
You can download a diskette install image from their FTP site.. takes about 11 floppies.

[Citsport]

Debian... hmm... I have never tried Debian. OK, so I just download disk images, do disks and install from them, but is there any GUI in those disks, or will I have to get them later? And what else do I need to get my laptop to work in LAN and to make internetconnection through it?

edit: If you get tinu-x to work, would you please let me know? Is there any place I could see what tiny-x looks like?

[ 01 July 2001: Message edited by: Citsport ]

[Shadoglare]

Once you get the base image installed from the floppies you can download additional software either using dselect, or apt-get, or just manually - the full Xwindows package is one of the ones you can get if you think you have room for it.
As far as networking it should have been in the initial setup - if not something must not have gone quite right.
And as for TinyX, I haven't seen a screen shot, but basically what it is is the very base system required to get X to run, and either a Mono or VGA16 graphics server - you can then add whatever windowmanager you want - I'm thinking probably either Sawfish or Blackbox right now as I'm very short on resources.


Originally posted by Citsport:
<STRONG>Debian... hmm... I have never tried Debian. OK, so I just download disk images, do disks and install from them, but is there any GUI in those disks, or will I have to get them later? And what else do I need to get my laptop to work in LAN and to make internetconnection through it?

edit: If you get tinu-x to work, would you please let me know? Is there any place I could see what tiny-x looks like?

[ 01 July 2001: Message edited by: Citsport ]</STRONG>

[Citsport]

Um... I was wondering that if I have PCMCIA-nework adapter, would it be easier to install linux over network? If it is, then it may be possible to install some olded version of any standard linux distro. Is this correct? Is it possible to install for example some older RH or Caldera to 540 mb HDD, if unneccessary packanges are not installed?

[bdg1983]

You could try RH 5.1 or Caldera 1.3.

There is VectorLinux (http://www.ibiblio.org/vectorlinux/index.htm) although it needs 16MB.

[Citsport]

OK. Thanks everybody! I'll see what I can get out of that old box...

[Shadoglare]

Another TinyX update -
Got it loaded, followed the directions, and apparantly it's only compatible "out of the box" with SmallLinux - the Debian I have loaded appears to have incompatible libs loaded...
First it complained about not finding libc.so.5 - I *did* have a libc.so.6, which was a link to libc-2.0.7.so -
So being the resourceful person that I am, I just created another link called libc.so.5, going to the same place.
And now it's segfaulting.
So I just send a message out to the SmallLinux/TinyX newsgroup hoping someone can help me clear this up :rolleyes: