linux on min. spec 8 MB ram old laptop

[acceva]

i have an old toshiba 415cs laptop with 8MB of ram, pentium 90, 700 MB hdd space
which linux distro should i use?
please recommend me some distro with minimal requirements and stampede,caldera 2.3, suse and redhat 6.2 and 7.0 doesn't work.
please relieve me from this tragedy of linux not being able to run on an old laptop which used to run windoze 95 plus!
thanx

[mdwatts]

I've seen this same question asked often around here although I cannot remember the responses. Suggest you search the forums for 'tiny' or 'laptop' or whatever, and you should find what you need.

I installed eDesktop 2.4 on my laptop (Toshiba p120, 32MB, 600MB for Linux), did the minimal install and all works including KDE. With your 8MB, you will have to find a distro specific to your hardware or install one of the popular distros and use either the commandline only (console mode) or install a WindowsManager that can run in the memory you have.

[hswoolve]

okay, here's the linux on laptops page: http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/kharker/linux-laptop/

and there's a Toshiba Satellite 415CS page here: http://www.astro.puc.cl/~mway/computers/notebook.html

HTH

[BTBGuy]

Hmmm. 8mb may be pushing it, but yeah, just about any distro that lets you do a minimalist, CLI-only install has a fighting chance of working. Slackware would be my personal choice, but TMTOWTDI!

Bryan Bates
bryanbates@cafes.net
Perl monger? Not a chance. But I'm getting there...

[Wonock]

I use Slackware 7.0 on a 16mb RAM machine and it runs fine.

[ph34r]

I've got Slack 7.1 on a 486sx33 with just under 4mb of ram - it counts about 3.75mb on boot, and free reports a total of 2068 bytes. Works fine for running ssh and other console only apps.

You may want to avoid X, since that is a big resource hog, but even that should be manageable with enough swap (64mb or so). If you do use X, be sure to use a light window manager, like Blackbox or twm.

Also, you may have problems installing - if so, post again, and I can give detailed instructions.