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Topic: 8MB of system memory - need to circumvent ramdisk, DSL memory requirements (HD vs. liveCD)

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jgombos

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Posts: 39
Joined: Nov. 2006

Posted: Nov. 09 2006,17:39

My current project is to run linux on a 486 with 8MB RAM.

I had no expectation that the live CD would work, particularly when there's documentation somewhere saying the requirement is 16MB. But I tried it anyway. The lowram cheatcode got me to the point where it seemed to be creating a ramdisk, then froze. So I tried the super-lowram cheatcode: dsl 1 vga=normal atapicd noideraid nosound noapic noacpi acpi=off noscsi noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce. That cheatcode failed immediately. The first line of output was "Uncompressing linux... Ok, booting the kernel," then it froze.

Running any kind of LiveCD is clearly out of the question. I believe my only hope of running DSL on this machine is to do a hard drive install. There is no documentation for the frugal install. Once I create a boot floppy, what then? Should I create an ext2 partition, and copy the /KNOPPIX folder to it? Will this approach circumvent the need for a ramdisk?

Ramik

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Posted: Nov. 09 2006,20:15

What are you planning to use the system for ?

jgombos

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Posted: Nov. 09 2006,20:50

Quote (Ramik @ Nov. 09 2006,15:15)

What are you planning to use the system for ?

Nothing in particular. I just want it to do something useful, like email, so that I possibly give it away rather than throw it away. The more things I can make it do, the better. The goal is to keep it alive (and to learn how to make other old machines useful so they can be given away to someone on www.freecycle.org).

u2musicmike Offline

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Joined: April 2006

Posted: Nov. 09 2006,21:28

I think you need a swap file. You might use a bootdisk like tomsrtbt to use fdisk for making a linux swap partition on your harddrive. Also, there might be something in the Wiki about using DOS swap files.

If you can boot up the CD with 8 Meg and a swap file it will probably run real slow. From my experience of the installations that I've done a regular harddrive install runs faster than a frugal install. The wiki has a little information for a harddrive install:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki....rd_Disk

I would modify these directions by first booting in text mode using "dsl 2". Installing from text mode uses less ram and you don't have to worry about typing sudo commands. 8 megs might be too small even with a swap file but I know DSL will work with 16 meg ram.

^thehatsrule^ Offline

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Posted: Nov. 09 2006,21:58

Wasn't it 16mb for X? (Do you need X?)

See Local Startup Docs in the wiki for hd and frugal installs (use search for more info)

You could boot with "dsl install" for it to launch an install menu on startup.

19 replies since Nov. 09 2006,17:39

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