So, what are the chances of getting a 233/66 PII running Linux ?

All I want it for is crunching FaD ... and let it munch away in the corner somewhere.

Won't cost me a penny or a Dim but only have a 4gig HD spare at the moment.



... and I got 5 more to make up.

It will work but what you probably should be doing is not to install the latest linux as it may overwhelm the system Since you will not be using it it will not make any difference if the distro is not to your liking. I once used Red Hat 7.2 on an old PII and it was in one word SWIFT

You might try DamnSmallLinux.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

whey hey, nice one M'Lady ... downloading now ....




anybody see where I put my IDE ribbon cables ... I cant find them.

Oh I wish I had my camera ... I don't know if Suse will finish installing, but it is getting there.



If it fails I'll try DSL.

and if it installs, will it load?

I gave DSL a try. It's based on Knoppix and that's good.
It boots into a Live cd with options to install to hd.
You''ll have to create a partition for it, and I'm not going mess with my SuSe install.
But it doesn't seem to bad for a small distro.

My dear lady,

I am right now downloading the Damn Small Thing

I plan to install it om me USB 40 GB drive and hope it will boot from there once I set it in Bios "boot from USB"

Anything else I need to worry about?

Yep ... Grub 17 error.
Still working on that one.

Suse failed with error 17 so I thought it was too good for the system, but I actually have a 6.4gig drive in there so it should have worked.

Anyway I try SDL and ... yep up it fires, but as you say, it is a 'live' CD with an option to install ... so I choose install.

oops ... same error ... I'm reading up on Grub error 17 now, so far everything should/is correct, but it no loadie.

Back later ... must get a case for this machine.

I use DSL alot. it is a phenominal distro for a 50 meg os. a 4 gig drive is fine. I set someone up with it for a backup machine in a 2.5 gig hdd. it's nice as a backup system, has firefox, and you can add their optimized programs easily with myDSL icon. it will run very nicely on that machine from hdd, it will be pokey if run live, as it really needs to have some memory to run.
IF you wish, I'll write you up a quick howtoo for installing it standalone. Adding it to an existing install is a bit trickier, depending on which bootloadre you run.
On thing that is differrent is that the main "start menu" is accessed by right clicking on the desktop, and scrolling thru the menus. actually very nice once you get used to it.
ahh what the hell:
DSL standalone install guide:
Boot the live cd.
Open a terminal window
enter: cfdisk
this starts the partitioning tool, similar to fdisk in dos.
delete all your present partitions.
Create an install partition at the start, size it to leave about 200-300meg free. make it type of linux (83 in the list).
Create the remaining as swap, type 82.
Use the write option to create the new partitions.
this should leave you with 2 partitions, hda1 for the os and hda2 for swap.
next type:
mkswap /dev/hda2
this will format the swap partition, dsl will see it and use it when it boots from hdd.

close the terminal window.
Right click on the desktop, go to programs/tools/ install to harddisk and run it.
Say no to ext3 on slow machines/hdd's when prompted
sya yes when asked if you want to install a bootloader. I believe they use grub now, but it may have a lilo option. your choice, on a standalone install, it really doesn't matter which.
it will copy all the files over, install the bootloader, and the window will close.
remove the cd and reboot.
Create a root password.
Create the password for the dsl user. (you can create other users, but I just live with the dsl user) (lazy on my part)

on disk, it is basically a debian install. running fad should foollow the normal linux install.

Enjoy what is a really well done OS. (I've used it since release 0.8 whenit was not as polished as it is now)

Thanks tjm4fun!
I was actually kind of impressed with what I saw in DSL, for such a small distro.
I think I may give a try at installing it.