User Feedback :: Come on, DSL ist to beat Win98!!!!!?

Hi folks;

I am seeking to follow-up on a recent Linux Mag article to get
old hardware up and running again... Here we go! It's a
laptop with a Pentium & 16MB RAM! Win98 runs on it without
any trouble so far. Now I went to a friend who burnt me a
nice .ISO Image CDrom on a new HP laptop, and on his machine the DSL popped up right away after re-boot and connected to the network and eventually the internet without
any trouble at lightspeed...

At home tough, the KNOPPIX boot promt comes, it gets my
NeoMagic graphiccard, my usb stick, me sb compatible
sound card, but when it comes to the point of starting up the X, then at most I ever got when playing around with FB vs. vesa and various resolution settings, was the desktop background with the toolbar at the bottom including time and date.. The CD drive runs and loads forevermore while the screen seems to hang

What can Win98 do, what Linux obviously in unable to? This
really bothers me here.. I do not want to having become a
rocketscientist, if you know what I mean..

Ok: Until we have (together) figured this thing out here, what about a solution 4 today? If I start it at "Init 2" (textmode),
then how can I run my COM-Port modem, start the Internet
services after having a pppd "Connect", TEXT browse with LYNX for example, if Dillo cannot do that (no clue?) and
use mutt-like textbased emailing software. BTW how do I
install this under MyDSL without X, and how do I save my
config at let's say my DOS/linux partition or my USB stick, so that I can cut short KNOPPIX hardware detection each time trying out DSL to its perfection?!

(R there easy PPP scripts found somewhere where I have to all but insert phone number, user & PW?!)

Afterall, its linux 4 damn small systems, hence you could offer a version (iso. image) that go much more stuff on the CDdrive to pick from?! (These 50MB took less then 10 min to download
on a DSL connection....)
Here on the site it is bragged that one runs a stream with a 16MB laptop (lol) I cannot see this happening with me here, or I am instructed. (but that is the thing with WINDOWS. You have it right there, eventhough it is a lousy OS all the way!!!)

First of all; I tracked this thread, but I do not get any emails of reply-notification?!

I cannot BUY more RAM for an OLD PC

Strange, are you saying the X is worse than actual windows?!

Okay, I saq this "install" at knoppix boot prompt to save
a DEBIAN Linux to the harddrive.. How does GRUB (boot
manager) operate and do I have to boot the system on the
harddisc in order to set its hardware up?! What is the
order here?!

Is there an expert out here, who can confirm the 2 above replies with the 16MB running on HDD ?!

Have you tried booting using the lowram boot option?

IF you can do this, then you can try this strategy ... It's worked for me and lets me get DSL up and running on every slow old low-memory pc i have tried so far.

1) boot from the cd using the lowram option. If you can, maybe stay out of fluxbox (will use less memory). So drop out of fluxbox to the shell. Make yourself root. (sudo su ... or equivalent)

2) check to see that linux sees your devices, like the cdrom, hard drives  and the netcard. (run&examine /etc/fstab ping lsmod etc.)

3) follow 'install to hard disk' http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/talk/node/64 instructions. The idea is to exploit linux's virtual memory feature FIRST, so as to give installation more (virtual) memory to use.  (With only 16mb of real memory, this is what you want to try.)  As instructed there, run cfdisk (or linux's fdisk) and make a swap partition (128mb), and a linux partition of 200mb or greater for the install. Details on the cfdisk, making swap & installing there in the dsl install docs (url above). I let the install script install lilo. (At this point I have to swallow hard because on some old pcs, I could ONLY boot dsl using windows file system (loadlin) and using cfdisk or fdisk wipes windows off of the system. No turning back! Gulp.

4) I've done it with 24mb ... for 16mb this may thrash the disk at times but hey, at least linux virtual memory gives you a chance to do it.

6) Maybe the virtual memory is why old M$ Win seemed to do better than new DSL: DSL linux hadn't yet been instructed to do swapping (= use virtual memory)?  (I'm guessing)

7) Good luck!