Hi

I have an old Compaq Deskpro 2000, Pentium 166MHz MMX, 128MB RAM, 2.4 or 6
GB HDD, CD-ROM.

I'd like to install linux on it, probably Mandrake (I've downloaded 9.2 cd
1) so it can be used as a tiny web server (as in, 1 hit a week webserver
for holiday photos), an e-mail server would be good so my parents can give
up hotmail, possibly FTP too but that's not an issue. I don't want any
GUI, as it will be just be left running 24/7 in the garage. So it would be
nice if it could recover from power failures, as I'm going to be at
university next year.

Maybe Mandrake isn't the way to go, I'd appreciate alternatives (I don't
mind an awkward set-up (ish) so long as it "just works" from then on).

I tried installing Mandrake, and it stuck with the hard drive light on
after installing 3 or so packages. Then I tried Gentoo (only other x86
distro I have on CD) and it went wrong whilst unzipping the tarball.

On the Gentoo live CD, I then booted with kernel options "nodma
ide=nodma" and did this:
root# ls //


root# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmasking = 1 (on)
using_dma = 0 (off)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (off)
geometry = 788/255/63, sectors = 12672450, start = 0

root# hdparm -d1 /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
blk: queue c0334960, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff)
using_dma = 1 (on)

root# ls /mnt/hda6


There's also some errors which suggest DMA is not functioning (Google
suggested the nodma options).

When I try the Gentoo install with DMA off, it works until I get fed up
with it compiling and reboot. When I try Mandrake with these options, it's
no different.

So, what I need to know:

1) Is Mandrake really the right choice? I'm doubting it. What distro?

2) Why, when installing mandrake having passed "nodma ide=nodma" to the
kernel doesn't it work?

3) How do I make it boot (when i get it installed) with the appropriate
kernel options by default?

Thanks :-) for any suggestions :-)

--
Matt



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