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 🙂