linux on old laptop with 8 MB RAM

Tom Buskey tbuskey at gmail.com
Tue May 24 09:22:01 EDT 2005


On 5/23/05, Peter Dobratz <peter at dobratz.us> wrote:
> I was given a Toshiba 105cs laptop.  Specs:
> 
> Pentium 75 Mhz
> 500 MB HDD
> 8 MB RAM
> 1 3.5 inch floppy
> 
> I believe this laptop had windows 95 on it originally, but the hard
> drive has been formatted fat32.  This does have 2 PCMCIA (type II)

More machine then some of the systems I've run linux on.

> slots.  We want to use this computer mainly for some word processing,
> so I thought that it would be good to install linux on it.  I got a
> 3com PCMCIA NIC and attempted to install Debian GNU/Linux.  However,
> the installation program crashes because we don't enough RAM (Debian
> requires 12 MB).  A test using memtest86+ did run successfully and
> confirm the fact that we have 8 MB.  I looked around, and apparently we
> have the option of installing a 32 MB memory module that retails for
> about $50.  However, if we can utilize this computer without upgrading
> it that would be ideal.

The best bang for the buck you can do is add RAM.  You're going to be
starving otherwise.  Back when I had a 486 as my desktop, I got a big
improvement going from 8MB to 16MB.  I ran Slackware w/ Linux 1.2.x
kernel I think.  There wasn't much for word processing then, but
emacs/LaTeX ran great.

> Are there any Linux distributions that can be installed from a
> floppy/network configuration that will install with 8 MB of RAM?

I'd imagine Slackware can.  NetBSD 2.0 can.  I've installed that
(until running out of disk) on a 386/8mb/100mb disk system via FTP. 
With 500MB you could probably get the whole base system.  I pared it
down to the minimum.

I'd also look at older releases if you don't care about being up to
the latest and security.  RedHat 6.2 will probably work.  That's also
install via a PLIP cable if you're desperate, but you have PCMCIA and
a network card.


-- 
The people I distrust most are those who want to improve our lives but
have only one course of action.
- Frank Herbert



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