Damn Small Linux - Not!

johnEP · Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 2

NEWBIE to NEWBIE advice: Get DSL and Gaim running on your very old PC.

Disclaimer: This a newbie posting to help other newbies. There may be redundancies and inaccuracies, but I hope these pointers help.

My daughter was always using my computer to surf and chat b/c hers was way too slow. She has a Pentium 1 with 64kb cache and 42MB RAM. I am a complete newbie to Linux, but got DSL, Firefox, and gaim (GUI AOL chat) working very well for her on her ancient machine. It took 1 day. I'll show you how to do it in 1 hour (or less?)............

Backup the files you want to save from Windows - we are going to format the HD.

Get the DSL LiveCD iso on a cd and boot it from CD on your old machine. You might need to alter your BIOS to boot from CD. Hold ESC during bootup to get there and change the boot order. Play a bit with DSL on the LiveCD.

1) Format HD, and partition it to include a swapfile
Go to:
Read and follow this to reformat your HD. Play with the menus and HELP in the formatting process to make sure you get your HD partitioned and formatted in the right way to have a swapfile ready to go (type 83 for swap).

2) Install DSL to hda2 with ATerminal
Boot the LiveCD, open ATerminal, type
sudo -s
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1
You have now made your swapfile.
now type:
dsl-hdinstall
Put DSL on hda2. Do not use ext3 filesystem (decline this option).

3) Install Gtk2 and GAIM
Click on MyDSL desktop icon
Click on Gtk2
Click on gTK2 in the window that comes up. Download it.
Click on gaim in that same window. Download it.

Click on "Load My Local DSL Ext" from the MyDSL menu.
Install Gtk2
Install gaim

From the Start menu (right-click on desktop), go to Apps / Tools / Synaptic. Install Synaptic. Run Synaptic. Install gaim from the Synaptic list..

4) Get your browser and video settings in order, then save your settings:
Start / System / Backup. Store this to hda2.

Bamm - Snap! Your ancient computer is surfing and chatting fast with nice GUI's for your daughter. Hope this helped.

kerry · Joined: 12 Jul 2006 Posts: 13

huh, gaim is aready there in dsl-n. there's no need to download it. are you on the right forum? i dont think there's synaptic either in dsl-n.

jimihieu · Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 51

[quote="kerry"]huh, gaim is aready there in dsl-n. there's no need to download it. are you on the right forum? i dont think there's synaptic either in dsl-n.[/quote]

well the gaim on DSL-N is not running probably... (it requires SSL library)
so i think his post does help...
will try out soon and hope it works
thanx!

johnEP · Joined: 31 Jul 2006 Posts: 2

Errr -- uhhh.. My original post was meant for DSL (not DSL-N) forum....
my mistake

In my defense: I did not note, nor was I notified, that DSL not was not DSL, my prior research notwithstanding. If this is not unclear to you, please don't let me know; otherwise do not hesitate to ask!

Thanks for humoring us newbies,

JohnEP