Install for an old PC.

[Charles K. Lee II]

On Fri, Apr 19, 2002 at 10:26:29AM -0500, King, Steve wrote:
> Would like to install linux on it, what would be a good distro for this
> old machine?

I'd wholeheartedly recommend Debian.  I'm running it happily on an IBM
Thinkpad 365X, which is a laptop that consists of a Pentium 133 CPU and 24 MB
of RAM.

The installer should have no problem recognizing your NIC (if it's supported
by the pcmcia-cs package, of course).  If you have a decent internet
connection, you can just do an install via HTTP/FTP.  Just download the
needed boot disks (rescue, root and driver-1 through driver-4 (get all 4
just to be safe)) from:

http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian/dists/testing/main/disks-i386/current/images-1.44/

Then follow the installation guide at:

http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/i386/install

If you have any questions, feel free to ask.  I've installed Debian
countless times, so I should be able to help.  Once you get it up and
running, be sure to read up on the package management system.  It was
basically the selling point for me when I first considered Debian.  For
example, this is what I needed to do to install X:

apt-get install xserver-svga

After waiting for it to download and install the package, I just downloaded
a XF86Config file posted on the web by another Thinkpad 365X user and I was
ready to go.

Good luck.

-- 
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- chuckx at cold-sun.com -
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