Will i be able to run DSL on such an old laptop?

Forum: Laptops
Topic: Will i be able to run DSL on such an old laptop?
started by: DImGR

Posted by DImGR on Oct. 11 2004,22:56

I want to get an old laptop and i have found some "good" ones on ebay
for example this one :

< http://i20.ebayimg.com/02/i/02/9e/a1/76_12_b.JPG >

166MHZ !!! 48MB RAM and 2.0 GB

i know the drive is big enough for a hd install but the speed is what concerns me
what do you think?

asking price so far is $35

Posted by RuKK on Oct. 11 2004,23:18

That'll work great. I've run DSL on a p120 lappy with 24 of ram and it was very usable. Much faster than win98 on the same system. Enjoy your DSLing

-RuKK

Posted by DImGR on Oct. 11 2004,23:40

Can i add an old laptop like this to my home network? That one has 1 usb port so i was thinking of getting a usb lan adapter and then connect it to my network:)

Posted by RuKK on Oct. 12 2004,00:57

Well, you probably have some PCMCIA slots you could get a network card for. Thats what I've done with mine. Cheaper than a usb adapter, generaly speaking.

-RuKK

Posted by cbagger01 on Oct. 12 2004,03:48

Just make sure that you get a REAL old-style pcmcia card and not a "Cardbus" card. The Cardbus cards won't work in older computers like your laptop.

Posted by AwPhuch on Oct. 12 2004,03:52

I have a compac LTE 5300 with 32Meg ram and 2.1 gig HD and a docking station.

DSL runs like a scalded ape on my system and all I had to do to get the nic on the docking station to detect was activate the ne2000 drivers and POW!!!

The oldest system I have DSL running on is an old 75Mhz(90Mhz if you push the turbo button in!!!) with 16Megs ram and a 504Meg HD...it gets sluggish but works, otherwise that laptop would be used to prop up my kitchen table or be used to keep papers from blowing around in the wind!!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by msuho on Oct. 13 2004,23:33

I'm running DSl 0.82 on a P133 with 64MB Memory. The
box has the old 16-bit PCMCIA cards, and I found a Xircom
network card. I had no installation problems, and fluxbox is
the only X I've run on it that wasn't dog slow. ( I used to haveRedhat 8.2 w KDE). As cbagger01 said, check to see if
you've got the old-style PCMCIA.

Good Luck,

Mark

Posted by Guerciotti on Oct. 24 2004,00:20

This is nice to hear, Im going to install it on my 266mhz 192mb 3.8gb Toshiba, cant wait to see how it works. I have to do some research still to figure out the partitioning suggestions.

I'm currently downloading the ISO, cant wait to see how it runs on my primary 2.4GHZ 1gb ram 256mb video hehehe

Posted by AwPhuch on Oct. 24 2004,03:30

Quote (Guest @ Oct. 23 2004,20:20)

Gonna run like a scalded ape man!!! with that much ram you can tell it to load toram and LOOKOUT!!!!!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by linster on Oct. 31 2004,17:35

my 486 has the old style pcmcia slots.

Posted by AwPhuch on Nov. 01 2004,06:02

Thats fine..just find old sytle pcmica cards..not cardbus
Gray metal all the way to the pins not the ones with the gold strip

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by NewDude on Mar. 28 2006,20:59

Awphuch,

I have a LTE 5380 and a docking station.... DSL didn't detect the NE2000 compatable NIC built into the docking station...

Can you post real quick what I need to do...

DSL so far is running great on the system, but I haven't installed the network driver... how do I turn on the NE2000 support?

Would that be modprode NE? Or something at the commandline???

Thanks...

Posted by AwPhuch on Mar. 29 2006,00:19

Quote (NewDude @ Mar. 28 2006,15:59)

As soon as I get home and get a power hookup to it, its a rather simple command line that I added to the /opt/bootlocal.sh file and bam..at boottime it loads the ne2000 drivers...pump's the DHCP and bamo..instant internet!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by NewDude on Mar. 29 2006,03:24

I got it to work...

ifdown -a

modprobe ne irq=10 io=0x340

ifup -a

then ran netcardconfig... it is up and going...

Posted by AwPhuch on Mar. 29 2006,03:42

Yup...exactly that...I had to set mine to irq=11 io=330 due to the bios (you can change it if you want in the bios)

Pretty sweet huh..sucker works pretty nice for such a hunka junker...just beware...if you open firefox...get ready for a 45-60 second delay!

Oh and you dont have to do netcardconfig...if you want to capture a DHCP address just add "pump -i eth0" right below that line to activate it..and bam

Just be warned if its not connected to a lan when you boot it will hang for about 30 sec until the DHCP request times out

now add those commands to your /etc/bootlocal.sh to activate it every time at boot time

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by NewDude on Mar. 29 2006,15:17

I wondered what the pump command was... cool

Thanks...

Last night after I brought it up on the network, I install XAMPP...

It will be running my website and forum... That install went great with no problems... I even got to do some tests last night with MySQL and PHP and Apache... everything is running way, way, better than expected.

Now I am in need of a light weight email server that where I can turn off open relay....

Posted by AwPhuch on Mar. 29 2006,18:52

http://www.emailman.com/unix/servers.html

have fun...pick one..let us know which one looks best for you

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by NewDude on Mar. 29 2006,19:35

Thanks AwPhuch... I will check it out.

After I get this thing configured and setup that way I want it, I am going to post the process of what I did to get this thing to work so maybe someone else can follow the template... so far it hasn't been that hard...

Posted by AwPhuch on Mar. 29 2006,22:55

Let us know how you run it too...

I would like to make one run in runlevel 3..but there is no non-graphical boot except dsl 2 in the cheatcodes

I would use webmin as well...very light and fast system config tool

Brian
AwPhuch