- This topic has 11 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated Jul 17-7:40 am by fatmac.
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jonathanyeung153
Hello,
I was doing a bit of cleaning up at the company i work for (leading hong kong telco) and found this fujitsu notebook running
Pentium III 500Mhz 64MB Ram (10MB used as video memory)
12GB Fujitsu hard drive
It has a bootable CD-ROM drive
Since it has a Serial port at the back, I was planning to use it as a terminal machine connecting to console ports of Cisco Routers/switches.
It was running Windows 2000 but very slow to boot up.Having some good experience with AntiX in my personal old notebooks, I decided to give AntiX a try.
i downloaded antiX-17.4.1_386-core.iso and burned it to CD-R.
It booted up fine and during the installation, I wiped the entire hard drive, i created a 2.2G swap partition and the rest EXT4.
Finishing installation however, it was unable to boot up, after the
“loading Linux 4.9xxxx”
“loading initial ramdisk”, it will show kernel panic out of memory.
See attachment
listening to the FAQ section, I downloaded antiX-17.4.1_386-base.iso and burned that to CD-R
this time booting from CD-R, it won’t even load into the desktop despite F6 choosing the Min desktops, it just crashes with a black screen (I waited for 15 minutes).What I tried:
Back to booting the antiX-17.4.1_386-core.iso CD-R, Before running cli-installer, I made sure the swap partition was there, mkswap command on the swap partition, free command to check Linux was really using it, then ran the cli-installer command, same result afterwards.What I didn’t understand was, why it was able to boot antiX-17.4.1_386-core.iso from CD-R with no memory issue but have low memory issue when booting from Hard drive?
Why? I really want to install the OS into the hard drive. what can I do?- This topic was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by jonathanyeung153.
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BobC
If you look at the FAQ, you will find system requirements:
So what are the minimum and suggested requirements to run antiX?
antiX should run on most computers, ranging from 192MB old PII systems with pre-configured 128MB swap to the latest powerful boxes.
antiX-core and antiX-net will run with 128MB RAM plus swap, but don’t expect miracles!
192MB RAM is the recommended minimum for antiX. 256MB RAM and above is preferred especially for antiX-full.
antiX-full needs a 3.8GB minimum hard disk size. antiX-base needs 2.6GB and antiX-core needs 1.0GB. antiX-net needs 0.7GB.
I’d suggest see if it can handle a 2nd chip, and you have one, add it. If not, try another distro like Tiny Core.
fatmac
64GB is very limiting, but I think Tiny Core may run OK, as should SliTaz, otherwise maybe one of the assembler distros.
http://kolibrios.org/en/
http://menuetos.net/Linux (& BSD) since 1999
Should i think of customizing the kernel to keep it from using too much memory? I’ve never done that before.
fatmac
64MB Ram (10MB used as video memory)
Can you reduce its usage of ram for video(?), might help – or maybe look at an old version kernel distro if you are only wanting to use the serial connection to your own computers.
Linux (& BSD) since 1999
dolphin_oracle
the initrd image on the live system is probably smaller than the initramfs that the installed system would use. coupled with the kernel loading, I think you could run out of ram pretty darn fast at only 54 mb available.
rokytnji
I’d start with old Puppy distros from archive org.
2.x CE Puppy comes to mind as well as bare bones pup.
Link I will provide shows newest 2019 and older ones are on the bottom. I gave you page 2.
https://archive.org/details/puppylinux?&sort=-date&page=2
Just commenting from past experience
http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/damn-small-linux-40-install-on-compaq.html
http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/compaq-armada-1540dm-running-windows-95.htmlBringing this netbook into the modern version operating system application world is gonna probably be a pipe dream maybe. Probably more suited for something like this.
Hardware like pcmcia may be old school where newer pcmcia is not a match.
I have a Kapok netbook even older than yours that Blue Flops is installed on. It is just a conversation piece that collects dust now.
fatmacs suggestions are pretty good also. There is pay version that will run on it that is like windows kinda sorta.
I can’t remember off hand right now the name of what I just posted though.It was in a old thread on the old Mepis forums years ago.
Anyways. Good luck with it.Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problemsAnonymous
jonathanyeung wrote:
Should i think of customizing the kernel to keep it from using too much memory? I’ve never done that beforeYou will probably have to at only 54mb usable ram and it’ll be a real patient and long journey since said
never done that before. It’s hard to walk someone through building a custom kernel without being there and
explaining. The kernel would have to only include the drivers/modules that machine needs (nothing more).
See if can find a ram stick to bring up to maybe 128 mb or higher.rokytnji
Might help or not.
Sometimes I drive a crooked road to get my mind straight.
Not all who Wander are Lost.
I'm not outa place. I'm from outer space.Linux Registered User # 475019
How to Search for AntiX solutions to your problemsfatmac
Another low resource distro is ‘tomsrtbt’ – http://www.toms.net/rb/
Might be enough for what you want.
Linux (& BSD) since 1999
manyroads
I know this is not an answer to your question but… you can buy functional refurbished laptops w 2GB of RAM for under $100 USD. I think your time analyzing the use of what will never be a wonderful machine is worth questioning. Time is money (someone told me…) 😉
Pax vobiscum,
Mark Rabideau - http://many-roads.com
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong." H. L. Mencken
dwm & i3wm ~Reg. Linux User #449130
20 Jan 2021 ~ "End of an Error"fatmac
Maybe, even, FreeDOS would do what you want, been a while since I used it. 🙂
Linux (& BSD) since 1999
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