In article <1tKdnbY5RLGiwMvcRVn-gQ@wideopenwest.com>, R.Spinks wrote:
>I have an old Pentium 166 w/ 32M of memory. I wanted to install Linux to try
>it out. I got the Mandrake 10 .iso and the install starts ok but after it
>gets going for a while it quits, kills processes and reboots the PC.

Well, I _REALLY_ would have expected it to give some error messages
before it did that, but a P-166 with only 32 Megs of RAM is not going to
do anything with the bloated GUI dependent distributions of today. You
will need a different distribution, or try to find a _LOT_ more RAM.

>1) Are my system requirements simply too low to handle Linux?

Linux? No. Mandrake (and SuSE, and Fedora, etc.), yes. Hit a sunsite
mirror like http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions and see about
100 different distributions available. You'll need a light weight
distribution, using a much less bloated desktop than KDE or Gnome. I'm
using the old 'fvwm' desktop, without all of the windoze wannabe BS,
and that easily fits into 21 Megs.

[kuiper ~]$ free
total used free shared buffers cached
Mem: 30824 30000 824 25556 1508 9760
-/+ buffers/cache: 18732 12092
Swap: 36284 14140 22144
[kuiper ~]$

The firewall box is a wheezy old 386SX-16 with 16 Megs of RAM, and 'free'
on that shows it's only using about _seven_ megabytes of RAM.

>2) If I can install Linux on this old PC can someone give me some idea as to
>why it quits?

I obviously don't use Mandrake, but there should be some documentation files
on the CD - probably including one named "README", and maybe "RELEASE.NOTES".
Here's what the RELEASE.NOTES file from Red Hat 9 says:

------------------------
Hardware Requirements
The following information represents the minimum hardware requirements
necessary to successfully install Red Hat Linux 9:

CPU:
- Minimum: Pentium-class
- Recommended for text-mode: 200 MHz Pentium-class or better
- Recommended for graphical: 400 MHz Pentium II or better

Hard Disk Space (NOTE: Additional space will be required for user data):
- Custom Installation (minimum): 475MB
- Server (minimum): 850MB
- Personal Desktop: 1.7GB
- Workstation: 2.1GB
- Custom Installation (everything): 5.0GB

Memory:
- Minimum for text-mode: 64MB
- Minimum for graphical: 128MB
- Recommended for graphical: 192MB
------------------------

That, sir, is the definition of extreme bloat, just to try to make it
look like windoze. According to that, my firewall box isn't worth even
thinking about. Wonder why I can install other distributions on these
lightweight boxes. Wonder why I stopped using those bloated ones.

For comparison, a very obsolete release of Red Hat (5.2 from 1999) wanted
a 80386, 16 Megs of RAM, and 450 Megs of disk for a workstation (1.6 Gigs
for a server).

Old guy

Thanks. I checked out ibiblio and I don't see fvwm but I do see several
small distr. I guess I can try.

"Moe Trin" wrote in message
news:slrnclesnt.1cr.ibuprofin@atlantis.phx.az.us.. .
> In article <1tKdnbY5RLGiwMvcRVn-gQ@wideopenwest.com>, R.Spinks wrote:
> >I have an old Pentium 166 w/ 32M of memory. I wanted to install Linux to
try
> >it out. I got the Mandrake 10 .iso and the install starts ok but after it
> >gets going for a while it quits, kills processes and reboots the PC.
>
> Well, I _REALLY_ would have expected it to give some error messages
> before it did that, but a P-166 with only 32 Megs of RAM is not going to
> do anything with the bloated GUI dependent distributions of today. You
> will need a different distribution, or try to find a _LOT_ more RAM.
>
> >1) Are my system requirements simply too low to handle Linux?
>
> Linux? No. Mandrake (and SuSE, and Fedora, etc.), yes. Hit a sunsite
> mirror like http://ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/distributions and see about
> 100 different distributions available. You'll need a light weight
> distribution, using a much less bloated desktop than KDE or Gnome. I'm
> using the old 'fvwm' desktop, without all of the windoze wannabe BS,
> and that easily fits into 21 Megs.
>
> [kuiper ~]$ free
> total used free shared buffers cached
> Mem: 30824 30000 824 25556 1508 9760
> -/+ buffers/cache: 18732 12092
> Swap: 36284 14140 22144
> [kuiper ~]$
>
> The firewall box is a wheezy old 386SX-16 with 16 Megs of RAM, and 'free'
> on that shows it's only using about _seven_ megabytes of RAM.
>
> >2) If I can install Linux on this old PC can someone give me some idea as
to
> >why it quits?
>
> I obviously don't use Mandrake, but there should be some documentation
files
> on the CD - probably including one named "README", and maybe
"RELEASE.NOTES".
> Here's what the RELEASE.NOTES file from Red Hat 9 says:
>
> ------------------------
> Hardware Requirements
> The following information represents the minimum hardware requirements
> necessary to successfully install Red Hat Linux 9:
>
> CPU:
> - Minimum: Pentium-class
> - Recommended for text-mode: 200 MHz Pentium-class or better
> - Recommended for graphical: 400 MHz Pentium II or better
>
> Hard Disk Space (NOTE: Additional space will be required for user
data):
> - Custom Installation (minimum): 475MB
> - Server (minimum): 850MB
> - Personal Desktop: 1.7GB
> - Workstation: 2.1GB
> - Custom Installation (everything): 5.0GB
>
> Memory:
> - Minimum for text-mode: 64MB
> - Minimum for graphical: 128MB
> - Recommended for graphical: 192MB
> ------------------------
>
> That, sir, is the definition of extreme bloat, just to try to make it
> look like windoze. According to that, my firewall box isn't worth even
> thinking about. Wonder why I can install other distributions on these
> lightweight boxes. Wonder why I stopped using those bloated ones.
>
> For comparison, a very obsolete release of Red Hat (5.2 from 1999) wanted
> a 80386, 16 Megs of RAM, and 450 Megs of disk for a workstation (1.6 Gigs
> for a server).
>
> Old guy

In article , R.Spinks wrote:

[compton ~]$ whatis fvwm
fvwm (1x) - F(?) Virtual Window Manager for X11
[compton ~]$

One of the "problems" in *nix is that you have a choice. 'fvwm' happens
to be an older window manager, that is small because it's fairly simple.
There are a number of others like 'enlightenment' or 'icewm' that are
fairly light. These window managers come as part of many different
distributions.

>but I do see several small distr. I guess I can try.

Hope there's something there that you like

Old guy