Good Linux soloution for this rig?

[Colt45]

Hey, Ive got a Cyrix 5x86 120mhz rig. it is a 486 ship, but has similar performance to a P90.

it has 16MB ram, and a 2gb scsi HDD.

I'm looking for a linux distro that will only use 500MB or so, maybe less.

only need it for a few things: HTTP server (Apache, which ive only used in Win32), and some FTP server, so i can move files around on it from my main rig.

I would prefer something with X, but its not totally neccersarry.

It's basically just going to be a light file server, and once in a while a web browser.

Can X even run on 16MB?
Thanks for any input

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

hey whats up colt, i havent been in neochat lately, good to see ya

anyways, debian or slackware will run fine on that, debian would be perfect, no complex hardware to set up, and installing apache will be a breeze with apt.

debian default install takes about 80MB, mine has grown to about 400MB on my p233, i've installed some stuff, installed a new kernel, and all my site data is on there. 2GB is more than enough.

X can run on 16MB, it just wont run all that well. and you can forget about running kde or gnome.

 

[Colt45]

Thanks BBWF

found a good server and im DLing debian @600KB/s

now i just need to find a cdrom for the 486, and learn PHP i suppose
well thanks for the help.

 

[Colt45]

ah poop

Debian won't recognize my SCSI for some reason (so the install halts, as there is no where to install to.)

Mandrake has a "abnormal error"

i guess ill try redhat and suse (im out of CD-R's.. hehe so thats all ive got left for options)

The thing i hate the most is that this mobo doesnt support boot from CD-ROM, so I need boot disks

Is there some driver i can install during the install of Debian? This rig has an OLD adaptec 1542CF card.

 

[Fatt]

Hey, you know what?

Try QNX.

You can run it from a CD or Floppy to see if you like it, it's real stable and reliable, I've had it work on all kinds of old hardware and it's WAY easy to install & configure.

qnx.com

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< ah poop

Debian won't recognize my SCSI for some reason (so the install halts, as there is no where to install to.)

Mandrake has a "abnormal error"

i guess ill try redhat and suse (im out of CD-R's.. hehe so thats all ive got left for options)

The thing i hate the most is that this mobo doesnt support boot from CD-ROM, so I need boot disks

Is there some driver i can install during the install of Debian? This rig has an OLD adaptec 1542CF card. >>


found this in kernel config: < > Adaptec AHA1542 support so it looks as though you should be able to use that card. (*should* being the operative word here )

the default, or "vanilla" floppy install disk should have support for that controller, i really am not sure why it doesnt work :/

 

[Nothinman]

Make sure the SCSI card isn't in PnP mode.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

<< Hey, you know what?

Try QNX.

You can run it from a CD or Floppy to see if you like it, it's real stable and reliable, I've had it work on all kinds of old hardware and it's WAY easy to install & configure.

qnx.com >>


qnx is pretty cool

only thing i dont like is that it (i think) uses the bourne shell, whatever shell it uses, it has no tab complete and i hate that.

 

[Colt45]

hmm, well i guess ill try it again then.

redhat just gave me the: "you dont have enough ram" speech

 

[Bremen]

If you're booting from floppy and you're not finding the SCSI drives (Adaptec 1542 is a well supported card under linux) Chances are you're using the wrong image for the boot floppy. Read the documentation, there should be as couple different images for the install floppy.

 

[Colt45]

well, i booted to a dos floppy, then went into the install directory of the debian CD, and ran boot.bat

I figure if theres no support on the CD-rom, then there wouldnt be on the floppies either.

anyways.. im hunting for images now