Installing DSL on 486 sx 25

Forum: DSL Tips and Tricks
Topic: Installing DSL on 486 sx 25
started by: stand

Posted by stand on Dec. 19 2005,21:23

I'm trying to get old 486SX with 16 mb of memory in life as a small web server.

I'd install DSL on 1.2gb HDD in P4 computer and move that HDD in old one. Now in process of booting DLS message me:
"No coprocessor found and no math emulation present.
Giving up."

It's really mean that I must give up?

I'll try to find DX, DX2 or DX4 processor, but why not SX?

Also I have 386 DX-40. Will it work on it?

Thanks!!!

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 19 2005,23:14

Any 486 system that has a "DX" should work because it has a math coprocessor.

Otherwise for "SX" systems you will need to use a version of the Linux kernel that has math coprocessor emulation compiled into it.

For example, if you try an old version of DSL like versio 0.5.3.1 or older it should work with an SX computer.

Or you could try to manually recompile the DSL kernel for version 2.0 and add in the coprocessor emulation and then remaster the iso or build a special boot floppy (this is not an easy task).

Posted by skaos on Dec. 20 2005,12:31

If the 386DX-40 has a math coprocessor it should work.

It should be possible to take a kernel from another distro and install it together with corresponding modules, and update lilo/grub to point to the new kernel (I haven't actually tried this ...). Autoconfig may not work but on a 486 there shouldn't be much to configure anyway. If you want to try this, you have to transfer the disk to the other pc and do the installation there. You could try this kernel:
< http://mirror.pudas.net/slackware/slackware-current/kernels/lowmem.i/ >
< http://mirror.pudas.net/slackwa....6-2.tgz >

Posted by stand on Dec. 20 2005,13:26

Thanks!
I'll try.....

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 21 2005,03:54

To my knowledge, nobody has ever got DSL to work with a 386 CPU.

All are 486DX or newer.

But this does not mean it is impossible. Maybe it has just never been tried before?

Posted by stand on Dec. 21 2005,08:47

I'd found 2 DX2 processors: Am486DX2 and Cx486DX2.
DSL freeze in process of 'Kernel decompressing' at Cyrix processor.... AMD is working.

Do I need to recompile Kernel on Cyrix?

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 21 2005,19:22

I dunno.

Try googling on Cyrix 486DX2 and linux.

Maybe there is some help out there.

Posted by brianw on Jan. 03 2006,23:57

If you just want a web server there are some floppy versions of linux that run on 386 and 486 computers that have web, ftp, dhcp, dns, etc... servers. Some are designed to run specifically from floppy and some can be installed to a hard drive. What else do you plan to do with the 486? You could also use it as a gateway/router if you don't have one already.