A decent MDK install on older hardware... ?

[HelzBelz]

:?:

 

I've looked at many sites and read many debates on installing Mandrake on older equipment : you know... the forgotten old box accumulating dust under a pile of outdated college books (from way back...).

 

... the one box with few resources : small capacity hard drive, little RAM, 386-486 or early Pentium, 1-4Meg SVGA Video card, etc.

 

How to revive it?

 

More to the point : a second (or third) desktop system running a GUI that, while remaining responsive, can run a Web/File browser, email, text editor, word processor (and not much else...).

 

The question : going through a Mandrake 9.0 CD installation, what can I "trim down" without sacrificing functionality, and not (subsequently) constantly being asked for "missing libraries" or "inserting the install CDs" ?

 

I would appreciate it if the substance of this thread could be more of an "HowTO" of some sort.

 

I'm not interested on an Internet Router or Firewall solution nor a Web Server or Printer Spooler : only a small desktop system to surf, write and read, in a graphical environment; all on a Mandrake base (... no "tiny linux" distros either...)

 

Thanks.

 

HelzBelz

 

:?:

[spiedra]

Well, on a 386 or 486, I don't think you are going to be able to install MDK 9.0, and if it actually installs, forget about X. This would all be console. You would be better off installing MDK 7.0 which is architectured for i486 processors and using a slim WM like Fluxbox. Also, you would shut down unneccessary services so you can free up your resources.

[HelzBelz]

Well, on a 386 or 486, I don't think you are going to be able to install MDK 9.0, and if it actually installs, forget about X. This would all be console. You would be better off installing MDK 7.0 which is architectured for i486 processors and using a slim WM like Fluxbox. Also, you would shut down unneccessary services so you can free up your resources.

:D

 

Perfect then. It does seem like we must draw a line between pre-Pentium (for console) and Pentium+ (basic X and a quick/clean Window Manager).

 

Can someone confirm this ? (especially the part about MDK 9.0 not able to install on a 386/486)

 

Now, let's say I try to rephrase my original question : how would one go about installing the bare minimum (yes, "à la" Slackware, but the Mandrake way), instead of trying to "remove" or shutdown services afterwards ?

 

... and, to spice things up, I've found an actual box : in my case, this would be a Pentium 120, 24MB RAM, 800MB hard drive, 2Meg Video card (SVGA 16bit color), CD-ROM, no network, a 56k modem (not a winmodem), PS/2 Keyboard & Mouse... and not much else.

 

Again, all I'm looking for is a GUI based system running a Web and File Browser, email, word processing and text editor...

 

Any pointers ? Links ?

 

Heck, that P120 machine I dusted off runs an old Win98SE license with IE 5.5 (slow but good enough to do the job; that's how I know the hardware works fine...); however, I need to wipe it off (no more Microsoft in my house, sorry, can't pay the "Bill"...) :wink:

 

I just can't think that Mandrake wouldn't have a solution for me !

 

HelzBelz

 

P.S. I've had experience with IceWM on my main machine, and I'm going to try out Fluxbox (I just keep reading good words about it...) so I'ld like to stick with something similar... but I'm always opened for suggestions.

[spiedra]

Well, I tried to install MDK 8.1 on a pc with these specs:

 

CPU: 486

RAM: 16 mg

HD: 4 gig

 

Couldn't be done. I approached someone with this problem and it was recommended that I try MDK 7.0. I haven't gotten around to doing that, but i've ran across several people who were trying to install MDK 8.2 and MDK 9.0 on a similar machine and were having the same problems I was having. I advised them to install MDK 7.0 in those cases and they were able to without any problems and using a light WM. So that's my experiance. I've never tried Slackware so I can't tell you about it, but it appears to be the way to go for a minimal installation. Or another solution, try Peanut. It's also a minimal distro designed for older pc's and I hear it's newbie friendly.

[HelzBelz]

Great !

 

I've just read about some reviews (and then, downloaded) Peanut 9.3. I'll sure be giving it a try (I see it's RPM based, with IceWM as standard, and from my country...).

 

But it is my duty to also give it a try with Mandrake, starting my way down from 9.0 to 8.2 (and to 7.0), if need be.

 

Still trying to get a few more pointers, anyone ? (see my original post).

 

I'm sure that I'm not the only one in that situation; this thread could become a great source of info for others !

 

Thanks.

 

HelzBelz

 

P.S. By the way, thanks spiedra : I can tell that you really take the time to read the posts and give relevant info.

[DragonMage]

Well, you have to realize that mandrake is designed to be used by pentium class pc or above. It's the way they compile the applications, kernel, and the like. 7.0 is the last mandrake that have a separate version that can be used in a 486 class computer I believe. I second spiedra's recommendation of using peanut linux or slackware if you want a minimalist distro. Besides, I think mandrake stopped the support for 7.0 so I don't think you can get updated packages for that distro. Of course, maybe RedHat can work with that computer also, but I prefer slackware/peanut to RH for minimalist distro.

[Glitz]

The pentium (i586) version of Mandrake will not run on anything less than a pentium (since it uses the new pentium instructions). However, Mandrake has an i486 version of LM7.0 that will work. Redhat is compiled for i386 and will work on i386 and higher. I don't know what the performance is like. I suppose that if you were willing to re-compile the Mandrake source and set the target for i386 that you could get 9.0 running. It would probably be slow though.

 

Glitz.

[qeldroma]

Perhaps you should get distance to Mandrake on this box?

There are LOTS of specialized Distros, which will do this kind of job pretty well.

 

I did RehHat7.2 on an 486DX4-133 with 20MB and it worked including X (shouldn't try KDE of course :mrgreen:)

 

Windowmaker did that job great and is not htat spartanic like bb or flux (DON'T start flaming, i like ALL wm).

 

For less, i will try another thing again:

Compile an highly compatible gentoo without extras like usb or firewire on a virtual VMware disk to port it.

I will see ;)

[Guest shakti]

i have successfully installed mdk8.2 on a pent166 with 48mb ram adn a 1.2gb hd and 1mb pci video. Now the mem might be low i would recommend min 64mb.

MDK 9.0 did not install on this box but that was cause my cd-rom could not boot the install disk for some reason.

Startup times will be painfully slow...there will be lots of swaping specially if you use kde or stuff like that. I changed it to fluxbox and the phoenix webbrowser (a spect down mozilla) and things got better.....

[Guest Peter_Pugh]

Hello,

 

I am new to Linux, so sorry if this is off topic.

 

As a training excercise, I have installed MDK8.2 on a Dell Latitude XPi P100SD. This is a laptop with a Pentium 100 & 40M. The graphics is a NeoMagic NM2070 with 896K. I had an redundant laptop harddrive with 12GB from another laptop which I installed in the Dell and it operates fine.

 

The installation worked fine, and although very slow, the machine is running . Also, after some tinkering with XF86Config-4, the graphics are reasonable in 800x600 8bit. I am able to run KDE or Gnome both with much swapping. IceWM is better.

 

I am currently having problems with the PCMCIA CD, and with Sound, but that is a seperate issue.

 

Hope this is of some value.

 

Regards.

[spiedra]

Hey Peter, Try Fluxbox. Your machine wil fly! :wink:

[roc19]

I ran every version of MDK since 6.0 on a P133 with 48MB RAM.

It worked just fine for me and I was using KDE & Gnome. It was a bit slow but fine for email and websurfing. I was also running it as my "do all" server at the same time.