[ale] linux on a 486

[Byron A Jeff]

> 
> Ben Coleman wrote:
> > 
> > On Mon, 06 Aug 2001 07:28:03 -0400, Wandered Inn wrote:
> > 
> > >I've been attempting to load linux on a challenging system.  It's a 486
> > >with 8 meg of ram.  Mandrake tells you up front to forget it, Red Hat
> > >will begin to boot, but a couple steps into the install process tells
> > >you you don't have enough memory.  I fell back on the tried and true
> > >Slackware which appears to work with limited systems.  In spite of the
> > >fact that the docs for 8.0 tell you the install requires 16 MB minimum.
> > >I figured I'd fire it up, create some extra swap and go with it.  Well,
> > >I get to the point where it's installing the devs package and, well it's
> > >still there two days later.  I can go to other virtual consoles and do
> > >limited stuff, but they begin to hang as well.  I could drop back to an
> > >earlier version of slack which I know has worked on this box in the
> > >past, but I'd like to go with latest greatest stuff if possible.
> > 
> > Check the file LOWMEM.TXT on the Slackware install disk for some hints.
> >  You'll probably want 32MB Swap and you may want to use the lowmem.i
> > boot disk instead of bare.i.
> 
> 
> lowmem.i doesn't have network support, and I'm attempting a nfs
> install.  Also, for those of you who may enjoy the old floppy install,
> it's apparently been removed from Slack 8 as well. :(

Very few kernels have network support in the current Slack boot series. The
drivers for the network cards have been transferred to the network.dsk along
with a script that probes and inserts those drivers. I found on my first
install that a random probe will hang the machine. So if you know which
card you have, follow the directions to insert its module directly.

This is a small ding against Slack. With almost everything modern being PCI,
it would be real easy to have a database that maps PCI ID's in /proc/pci
into network drivers.

> 
> By the way, the LOWMEM.TXT file does say the minimum ram is 16 MB, but
> I'd love to prove them wrong. :)  Although further in the same doc, they
> make mention that a 4mb machine chokes on bare.i, so "it's probably time
> for installation to machines with less than 8 megabytes to become
> officially unsupported" which would seem to indicate that I might still
> be in luck

Probably.

> 
> There's no reference to my approach of adding a large chunk of swap to
> supplement the limited ram.  They do say you can borrow memory along
> with a large chunk of swap, so we'll see how this goes.  I'm stepping
> through it slowly right now, and when it fails, I switch to a virtual
> console and do the install of the failed part by hand.  Who knows if
> this will work, but I'll post a summary once it completes.

Your best bet is to prep the swap before running setup. Do the mkswap/swapon
by hand. That's your best chance.

BAJ
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