[PLUG] Small distribution

[Kyle Hayes]

On Sunday 01 February 2004 16:14, Rich Shepard wrote:
> On Sun, 1 Feb 2004, Aaron wrote:
> > Can anyone recommend a small distribution of unix to run on a really old
> > laptop (120 mghz 24 mg of ram 1 gig hard drive).  Thanks!
>
> Aaron,
>
>   Slackware. 8.1 if not the newer versions. There is a tiny distribution on
> the disks.

And, based on Slackware, there is Vector Linux.  It is designed for smaller 
machines. I've shoehorned it onto a P-133 laptop with 32mb of RAM and been 
able to run a graphical environment.  I think the ISO is about 400MB, but I 
think there's some means of trimming down what packages you get.  I haven't 
played with it a lot, but it it used by FreeGeek for some of the older 
laptops they get too.  FreeGeek might sell preburned CDs of Vector Linux.  I 
haven't checked.

I've had fairly good luck with hardware detection etc. with either Knoppix or 
Morphix.  They won't run a graphical environment with that little RAM, but at 
least you might figure out the hardware.

I once was able to install SuSE 8.0 onto the laptop I mentioned above, but it 
was an exercise in pain and frustration.  It took about a week of trying 
different things and struggling to understand the German comments on the SuSE 
web site :-)

Best,
Kyle