Old Linux and GUI for Old laptop

[LordWiccara]

hello everyone, I have a really old IBM Thinkpad 755C, and I would like to put Linux on it with a simple GUI.  It has a Intel 486 DX4 (75mhz) processor, 850mb HD, and 4MB RAM, Floppy Drive, and No CDROM.  Does anyone know of a good Linux and GUI that will run nicely on it? (Im really sick of DOS and Win 3.11)  thanks

[Master of Reality]

ooooo fancy.... i have a thinkpad 750cs and i have windows 95 on it!. but i havent turned it on in months. Hmmmm... can you connect to internet? For my laptop i was planning to install linux over the internet, or you could try and get an external CDROM that will hook into the parallel port.
Almost any linux would do, just use BlackBox, Enlightenment, or Windowmaker for the GUI. Make sure not to use Gnome or KDE, those will be utterly horrifying on it.
You could also try and put a floppy disk distribution on it, but i fear that wont be any good at all.

[ May 08, 2003: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / Bob ]

[ May 08, 2003: Message edited by: The Master of Reality / Bob ]

[LordWiccara]

Haha, yes I can connect to the internet via 56k.  Someone put a PCMICA 56k modem in there, but I dont have the cable to connect it to the phone line (bastard) and the cables are like $25 bucks each.  If im gonna use the internet on it, ill just get an ethernet card to connect to the cable modem.  Thanks

[Calum]

okay, it's a 486 so it should be able to run linux. some distros will not run linux on a 486 though. i know mandrake only runs on a pentium or up. i suspect that slackware will still run on a 386 and a 486, so maybe you should try that on it, that's what i would recommend anyway.

[mobrien_12]

A barebone slackware would be the best choice.  I don't think you can really run XF86 with only 4 mb ram tho  

[Calum]

it probably can, but i think you are supposed to have at least 16MB, and optimally 32MB. i have a feeling 4MB will take a bit of tweaking to run X.

you might be interested in this link:
http://gd.tuwien.ac.at/opsys/linux/baslinux/

BasicLinux is a linux which is based on slackware. it is optimised for old computers with limited hardware resources. They provide really pared down slackware packages that work, but do not provide anything like the functionality of a full slack linux. also, their use of busybox, excellent though it is makes it very hit and miss installing extra software on your system, since it is always possible you could wipe out your main system utilities (like cd, rm et cetera). If i were you i would install a minimal text only slackware 9.0 and then go and thoroughly read up about basiclinux until you are confident you can follow their instructions to get X working (i am not 100% sure of what these instructions are at the moment i haven't used basiclinux since version 1.7 which was very different to its current version).

edit:
here are the instructions for adding X. I suggest as i said that you install a small slack installation with only the components you require and nothing else, then follow the X installation instructions i linked to here and see how you go. those instructions worked for me, but i was using basiclinux 1.7 (based on slack 3.5 but not as versatile) and i had 32MB.

further edit: if you are using the installation instructions for how to install X on basiclinux, but you are using slackware, use "installpkg" instead of "pkg". i would recommend using "installpkg -warn" before you actually install them too, just in case, see man installpkg for more details.

[ May 09, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: hopelessly outnumbered ]

[LordWiccara]

Hello, i tried a small Linux called, ironically, Small Linux.  After about an hour of trying to get the boot disk to work on a thinkpad, i used the command Linux Root=/dev/fd0 floppy=thinkpad, and it worked!  Then i spent about another hour on formatting the drive into ext2, but i can now do that without any problems.  Now im having trouble mounting the hard drive.  i type in mount/dev/hda1/mnt and it does not work, and im confused.  ive tried about a million other things, but i WILL NOT give up...im too determined  

[Calum]

you have missed out the spaces.
do "mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/" and it should work. use "man mount" for more information. or perhaps you might need to do "info mount" or "mount --help" if you are using a stripped down linux with less man pages than usual.

[Copperhead]

You need to define the filesystem type you are trying to mount. Plenty of ways to do this:

This is all from the man mount page:

What the mount man page will not tell you is that you need to create "mount points" so you can cd into a filesystem after you have mounted it.

As Root:

$ mkdir /mnt/harddrive

then:

$ mount -t vfat /dev/hda1 /mnt/harddrive

$ cd /mnt/harddrive

$ ls -la

You should see all of your files on that harddrive, as well as have full read, write, and execute permissions to them.

Of course, it is easier to edit /etc/fstab to define your filesystems on your harddrives, removeable media, and their mount points. Then you can just use the command:

mount -a

if you've defined them all correctly.  This is all explained in the FAQ at the top of the page.

[Calum]

that's a nice little tutorial, i was assuming that the filesystem type would be autodetected by mount, but it may not be on some versions and with some filetypes (i know from experience!    )

[LordWiccara]

thanks, ill try that when i get home...stupid school...they use Win$hit

[Faust]

Try setting the schools homepage to make cupholders then crash IE.  Then make the schools site the home page for all the IE browsers in the whole school. That might convince them to use a decent OS.  

[LordWiccara]

hahaha, unfortionatelly, that will only affect my account on this computer because everyone has their own login and password and settings like that do not affect others...i wish it would though

[Faust]

Bribe your admin.  

[LordWiccara]

hahahahaha    
the admins are a sea captain and 2 fat men!  they love the school too much to be bribed.