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From: ray on 5 Mar 2010 18:45
On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 12:31:41 -0800, jimmy_please(a)yahoo.com wrote:

> I have a really old laptop with 32mb ram and 3 gig disk space, plus 1
> usb, while still having hope to use for only web browsing.
>
> I've tried DSL but haven't figured out how to configure the wireless usb
> dongle.
> Knoppix is another option, as I was able to run it on an old desktop
> with 640mb ram, and the wireless usb dongle is recognized as soon as I
> plug it in. However, it won't boot the old laptop possibly due to the
> size of the limited memory.
>
> Which Linux distribution I should use for this size of memory with
> wireless usb dongle plug-n-play support?
>
> Thanks,
> Jimmy

That's not 'really old' - I have a 'really old' laptop - Zenith with
8086, 640K ram and two floppies.

I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with 64mb -
no flier, but it works.
From: Mark Hobley on 5 Mar 2010 22:08
ray <ray(a)zianet.com> wrote:
> I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with 64mb -
> no flier, but it works.

I use Debian on Pentium 120s here on systems with 64Mb RAM. I couldn't get
Debian to run on a 32Mb RAM machine, so I added more memory.

I think it is cool that the original poster managed to find a distro that
worked with 32Mb RAM.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

From: Michael Black on 5 Mar 2010 22:23
On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Mark Hobley wrote:

> ray <ray(a)zianet.com> wrote:
>> I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with 64mb -
>> no flier, but it works.
>
> I use Debian on Pentium 120s here on systems with 64Mb RAM. I couldn't get
> Debian to run on a 32Mb RAM machine, so I added more memory.
>
> I think it is cool that the original poster managed to find a distro that
> worked with 32Mb RAM.
>
Actually he said something about 640megs, which I'm sure was an error.

It's easy to find distributions that run with 32megs of RAM. When I
started running Linux in mid-2001, that's all I had, and a 2gig hard
drive. Of course, I was using Slackware 7.0, which was a tad old at the
time.

Remember, Linux ran originally in 4megs (or was it less?), but watch
out that you have enough swap space.

Finding a distribution that is current and runs in 32megs probably
is another issue.

Michael
From: General Schvantzkoph on 6 Mar 2010 08:08
On Fri, 05 Mar 2010 22:23:15 -0500, Michael Black wrote:

> On Sat, 6 Mar 2010, Mark Hobley wrote:
>
>> ray <ray(a)zianet.com> wrote:
>>> I'd seriously look at adding memory. I've run Elive on a P166 with
>>> 64mb - no flier, but it works.
>>
>> I use Debian on Pentium 120s here on systems with 64Mb RAM. I couldn't
>> get Debian to run on a 32Mb RAM machine, so I added more memory.
>>
>> I think it is cool that the original poster managed to find a distro
>> that worked with 32Mb RAM.
>>
> Actually he said something about 640megs, which I'm sure was an error.
>
> It's easy to find distributions that run with 32megs of RAM. When I
> started running Linux in mid-2001, that's all I had, and a 2gig hard
> drive. Of course, I was using Slackware 7.0, which was a tad old at the
> time.
>
> Remember, Linux ran originally in 4megs (or was it less?), but watch out
> that you have enough swap space.
>
> Finding a distribution that is current and runs in 32megs probably is
> another issue.
>
> Michael

He probably meant 64M, 640M will run any distro.

I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an
antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane. Actually
that's a poor analogy because Moores law never applied to airplanes, a
modern passenger jet is only about 20 times faster then the Wright Flyer
whereas a modern PC has 256 times as much memory and is at least that
many times faster then the shitbox that the OP is talking about. Even if
he gets it to work, which might be possible if he builds a custom kernel
for DSL, using the thing is going to be painful. You can can get a
netbook, or build a low end desktop, for a couple of hundred bucks. For
less money you should be able to find something that's only five or six
years old that that will perform decently. A 10 year old machine would
have 512M on it, that's enough to run any distro although not very well.
You could probably get someone to pay you to take a 10 year old machine
off their hands, the recycling fee is about $20 so the OP could offer to
take the machine away for $10 and both parties would be happy.

From: TJ on 6 Mar 2010 09:15
On 03/06/2010 08:08 AM, General Schvantzkoph wrote:

> I don't understand this mania for trying to run modern software on an
> antique machine, it's like putting a jet engine on a biplane. Actually
> that's a poor analogy because Moores law never applied to airplanes, a
> modern passenger jet is only about 20 times faster then the Wright Flyer
> whereas a modern PC has 256 times as much memory and is at least that
> many times faster then the shitbox that the OP is talking about. Even if
> he gets it to work, which might be possible if he builds a custom kernel
> for DSL, using the thing is going to be painful. You can can get a
> netbook, or build a low end desktop, for a couple of hundred bucks. For
> less money you should be able to find something that's only five or six
> years old that that will perform decently. A 10 year old machine would
> have 512M on it, that's enough to run any distro although not very well.
> You could probably get someone to pay you to take a 10 year old machine
> off their hands, the recycling fee is about $20 so the OP could offer to
> take the machine away for $10 and both parties would be happy.
>
You've never taken on a challenge just to see if you could do it, have you?

I don't understand this mania for throwing perfectly good machinery
away, just because it's "experienced." While the OP may indeed be trying
to put a size 12 foot into a size 6 shoe, the "10 year old machine" you
are so quick to dismiss as one step from the scrap heap is anything but.
I have a 10 year old desktop with 512M, though I admit it didn't come
that way. It runs Mandriva 2010.0 with KDE 4 just fine. With the nVidia
FX5500 video card installed, it even runs the KDE 4 eyecandy without
skipping a beat. OK, so I wouldn't want to do a lot of multitasking, and
editing a photo with The GIMP could be a painful process. So what? If
all I want to do, as the OP said *he* wanted to do, is surf the Web, get
some email, and lurk in newsgroups, the above machine is all I'd need -
and more. I, for one, would *NOT* "pay the OP to take the machine away."

TJ
--
90 per cent of everything is crud.

- Theodore Sturgeon
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