# Linux for 486 laptop?



## GotDart (Dec 3, 2004)

I have an old Compaq Elite laptop that I want to try and intall Linux on. It has a 486-75MHz processor with 8Mbyte of system memory, an 800MByte hard drive, a floppy drive, and a PCMCIA slot. No provisions for adding a CD-ROM, but I do have a 19.2k fax/modem for it. Any chance this thing would even run Linux? What distro would be the easiest to set up? How would I install it? 

The application for this system is an in-car data logging/tuning tool called MegaTunix which is used for the MegaSquirt EFI controller. Supposedly it will 'work on all other Linux distros (Assuming the proper libraries are installed), FreeBSD and Mac OS-X (with fink and the necessary support libraries installed)'. Ideally I would want to intall a wireless lan card and connect to my home network to transfer log files and such.


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## Skie (Mar 15, 2003)

Any Distro should work on your machine. You'll just have to be careful not install various things, just as the GUI (X). I think the biggest problem you'll run into is finding a distro that you can install from floppies as most come on CD's. Some should allow you to install through FTP. Doing this through a modem is going to be painful though. 

If you're stuck using floppies, you can take a look at this link and see if any of these will suit your needs. http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/. Keep in mind that many of these floppy based distros are limited in scope due to the small packaging media.


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## w00t (Jun 30, 2004)

Were not talking dodge dart are we here?

Go back in time and search for some older versions of slackware (I am shure there is one that installs of of a floppy because our admin has a pentium pro laptop up with an older slak and it has no CD-ROM.

That will be l33t when you get it going.


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## GotDart (Dec 3, 2004)

> Were not talking dodge dart are we here?


Well actually, yes we are. :wink: 

Yes I was doing some research today and saw that ZipSlack is only about 100M fully installed. This sounded kind of promising. I also found a copy of PCHook, and I still have an old LapLink parallel cable so that may help downloading files. I'm thinking download the zip file off the internet to my Windows machine, blast it to the laptop with PCHook, extract it, then install it. Does that sound feasable?


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## gotissues68 (Sep 7, 2002)

An uber old version of slackware will work although zipslack is meant to be run off a zip drive itself rather then a hard disk. You might look into Peanut Linux which is something crazy like 50mb-100mb fully installed. http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/ ....

just checked its up to 400mb bleh... I'll poke around and find one  gives me more reason to create my own distro heh


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## Skie (Mar 15, 2003)

gotissues68 said:


> gives me more reason to create my own distro heh



The "I've Got Issues Linux"?


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## w00t (Jun 30, 2004)

How in the heck are you going to get the info of the V8. You are going to have to make your own electronics system, with sensors and all. (I am sorry if you have the mind to do such a thing, and if you do I applaud you)

Make yer own distro YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## gotissues68 (Sep 7, 2002)

w00t said:


> How in the heck are you going to get the info of the V8. You are going to have to make your own electronics system, with sensors and all. (I am sorry if you have the mind to do such a thing, and if you do I applaud you)
> ======
> ^
> Huh?
> ...


========
^
http://lfs.osuosl.org/lfs/news.html


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## Skie (Mar 15, 2003)

w00t said:


> How in the heck are you going to get the info of the V8. You are going to have to make your own electronics system, with sensors and all. (I am sorry if you have the mind to do such a thing, and if you do I applaud you)
> 
> Make yer own distro YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Uhh... We're not talking about cars here. This is a thread about Linux on a 486 computer. 

And making your own distro isn't that complicated.


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## w00t (Jun 30, 2004)

I didn't mean that making your own distro was hard, I said that making an entire electronics system for an older V8 is very hard to do. 

I know we are not talking about cars but his laptop IS to monitor the stats of his motor.


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## GotDart (Dec 3, 2004)

Well hopefully I just made things easier by obtaining a docking station for my laptop. This gives me an ethernet port and two IDE drive bays which should make loading large SW components easy. Now I just need a basic distribution that will still provide the features I need.

The application SW I want to run requires 'FreeBSD and Mac OS-X (with fink and the necessary support libraries installed)'. Not being familiar with Linux, I have no idea what this means. Is this part of any basic installation? What functions do these components enable?

w00t, this is the EFI controller I am building. MegaSquirt
It is in sort of the same spirit as Linux in that it is completely open source.


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## Skie (Mar 15, 2003)

Fink basically allows you to compile Linux/Unix code on MacOS X. http://freshmeat.net/projects/fink/.


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## w00t (Jun 30, 2004)

Wow, I must say that is cool,you gonna put together your own manifold?

Ive used fink a couple times at school on the macs to run some linux stuff, but I never really bother with it enough to know anything about it. I would just run Linux.

Dart go and get an IDE CD-ROM and load up some Linux on your laptop.


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