>> Can you make a suggestion of a Linux distribution available for
>> download that could be easily installed and doesn't uses more than
>> 200MB (of HD when installed) but still can run OpenOffice, Mozilla
>> and such?
> No. Basically, unless you are an "expert Linux hacker" you
> must devote at least
> as much, usually more, computer resources to a Linux install
> than a Windows XP
> install.
I'm hoping that was intended to be a bit of overstatement. Yes, you probably
will need to become very familiar with Linux to get Linux, a windows manager,
OpenOffice, and Mozilla all running on 200MB hard disk. One option might be
putting part of the system on a CD ROM.
If you can find an old 2GB drive, I'm sure you'll have no problem getting it all
working. About one year ago, my wife (definitely not an expert Linux hacker)
got upset after becoming the victim of an Outlook worm. So she installed RedHat
7.1 on her PC. All she used was the RedHat installation manual, and some notes
about her hardware that I had scribbled in the book.
When she was done, the whole install fit on about 2GB worth of hard drive
partitions and ran cleanly. That's 10 times the 200MB size requested, but not
something that I would expect XP to do well with.
"Small" is in terms of RAM, not disk space, but some of the comments address
limited disk space.
I've followed some of the tips and played with some other applications that I
found. Now I have a 166MHz Linux box with 64MB of RAM at home that responds
faster than my 1.2GHz Win2K box with 256MB of RAM at work.
> Can you make a suggestion of a Linux distribution available for
> download that could be easily installed and doesn't uses more than
> 200MB (of HD when installed) but still can run OpenOffice, Mozilla
> and such?
Nope, can you find a way to install Windows with M$ Office, Internet
Exploder, and all that in 200MB of disk space? I think not. My Windows
installation uses more than that jut for swap space. Figure 2GB minimum
for a usable system.
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 02:47:08PM -0600, Dale Botkin wrote:
> > Can you make a suggestion of a Linux distribution available for
> > download that could be easily installed and doesn't uses more than
> > 200MB (of HD when installed) but still can run OpenOffice, Mozilla
> > and such?
>
> Nope, can you find a way to install Windows with M$ Office, Internet
> Exploder, and all that in 200MB of disk space? I think not. My Windows
> installation uses more than that jut for swap space. Figure 2GB minimum
> for a usable system.
No kidding. For a new system (including Linux), I'd recommend 256MB
of *RAM*. If you could fit Linux on 200MB, maybe you could install it
on one of those CompactFLASH cards. :)
Play with larger distro's/tools on larger PC's first; otherwise the
frustration will likely make you quit bothering with linux altogether.
There were/are several projects to shoehorn linux installs into smaller
systems --IE <128MB CF disks on netpliance boxes (Jailbait distro fit into
the sandisk 16MB flash!). Quite a bit of stuff could be crammed
(relatively) ; but you end up with a system that only a true hacker would be
happy with or could appreciate. Check out freesco/floppy based distros as
well as a number of MP3 linux player projects for cramming ideas.
----- Original Message -----
> >> Can you make a suggestion of a Linux distribution available for
> >> download that could be easily installed and doesn't uses more than
> >> 200MB (of HD when installed) but still can run OpenOffice, Mozilla
On Fri, Jan 03, 2003 at 02:47:08PM -0600, Dale Botkin wrote:
> > Can you make a suggestion of a Linux distribution available for
> > download that could be easily installed and doesn't uses more than
> > 200MB (of HD when installed) but still can run OpenOffice, Mozilla
> > and such?
>
> Nope, can you find a way to install Windows with M$ Office, Internet
> Exploder, and all that in 200MB of disk space? I think not. My Windows
> installation uses more than that jut for swap space. Figure 2GB minimum
> for a usable system.
Knoppix is a complete Linux distribution on a bootable CD. It requires no
hard disk space at all. And it autodetects most hardware. OO, Mozilla, and
KDE 3 are all included.
Worth more than a look if you want to know if linux will work on your
hardware.
Worth more than a look if you want to know if linux will work in your head.
Worth the five clams I paid for a copy of it on CD. Pop the CD in, (after
either changing the bios to boot from CD (easy) or use a boot floppy you
can make from the CD), wait for it to boot up. It sniffed out *ALL* my
hardware correctly, put up a KDE desktop (you can choose gnome or others),
made *LOTS* of software available. And *NEVER* touched my harddrive. It
makes a ramdisk to do all this from. If you click on say Open Office, it
does have to load it from the CD so it takes a bit of time. And if you
exit, you lose all config data you might have setup.
But... you can test all linux programs and see if they make a good
alternative for you. When I bought it, I also bought a copy of Mandrake 9.0
- 3CD set. I immediately installed it after running Knoppix a few times.
I used an old 10gig drive and it installed a boot loader so I can still run
windows. No sweat.
If you want, the Knoppix CD does have a built in installer program to
actually install to disk but you have to find it. It's a bit of
unsupported stuff so it isn't made easy to find for a beginner. If you know
enough to go out on the net and find out how to load it, you probably have
enough brains to do it correctly. Maybe.
>Not so fast my friend! There is another option.
>
>http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html
>
>Knoppix is a complete Linux distribution on a bootable CD. It requires no
>hard disk space at all. And it autodetects most hardware. OO, Mozilla, and
>KDE 3 are all included.
>
>Certainly worth a look.
>
>BAJ
>Actually, depending on what applications you want to run; you may not *need*
>to even run X (which is ultimately the resource hog).
>
>Links -- (similar to the text based Lynx) can be compiled with the SVGA lib
>for a very small graphics based browser...
>http://freshmeat.net/projects/links/?topic_id=91%2C89%2C112%2C88
>
>Play with larger distro's/tools on larger PC's first; otherwise the
>frustration will likely make you quit bothering with linux altogether.
>There were/are several projects to shoehorn linux installs into smaller
>systems --IE <128MB CF disks on netpliance boxes (Jailbait distro fit into
>the sandisk 16MB flash!). Quite a bit of stuff could be crammed
>(relatively) ; but you end up with a system that only a true hacker would be
>happy with or could appreciate. Check out freesco/floppy based distros as
>well as a number of MP3 linux player projects for cramming ideas.
>
I bought into Linux from the posts here. I ordered up a copy of Red Hat 8.0
from Provantage last week about this time. It arrived on Friday and I
started tinkering on Sunday afternoon. There have been a lot of false
starts. I believe that the major problem is that it simply does not know
what to do with my video adapter. The challenge of resolving the problem in
text mode has been more than a little frustrating. It is not the lack of
information but rather the quantity that is the problem. So far I have
limited my self to the contents of the Red Hat Package.
The install book is pretty good except that it is very small print.
Fortunately, it is available online and it is included on the documentation
disk. It would be a whole lot worse if I was working on my only system! To
be fair though, I have not registered the package yet and taken advantage of
the included 30 day tech support offer.
I am not disappointed. The $40 to get the package to my door has been well
spent. If you have access to a few experienced Linux users you could
probably get it all at no cost from the Red Hat site. In my case, I am a bit
isolated.
After I take a breather from the frustration, I will take on the next
problem.
John Ferrell
6241 Phillippi Rd
Julian NC 27283
Phone: (336)685-9606
Dixie Competition Products
NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
It is a good idea, if you have Windows installed on the same machine, is
to get all information as possible from your hardware, including
manufacturer, model, and resources (IRQs, I/O address ranges), then post
it to a newsgroup like alt.linux, alt.os.linux or comp.os.linux.help ant
keep checking for answers.
>I bought into Linux from the posts here. I ordered up a copy of Red Hat 8.0
>from Provantage last week about this time. It arrived on Friday and I
>started tinkering on Sunday afternoon. There have been a lot of false
>starts. I believe that the major problem is that it simply does not know
>what to do with my video adapter. The challenge of resolving the problem in
>text mode has been more than a little frustrating. It is not the lack of
>information but rather the quantity that is the problem. So far I have
>limited my self to the contents of the Red Hat Package.
>
>The install book is pretty good except that it is very small print.
>Fortunately, it is available online and it is included on the documentation
>disk. It would be a whole lot worse if I was working on my only system! To
>be fair though, I have not registered the package yet and taken advantage of
>the included 30 day tech support offer.
>
>I am not disappointed. The $40 to get the package to my door has been well
>spent. If you have access to a few experienced Linux users you could
>probably get it all at no cost from the Red Hat site. In my case, I am a bit
>isolated.
>
>After I take a breather from the frustration, I will take on the next
>problem.
>
>John Ferrell
>6241 Phillippi Rd
>Julian NC 27283
>Phone: (336)685-9606
>Dixie Competition Products
>NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
>"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
>
>
>
-- http://www.piclist.com hint: PICList Posts must start with ONE topic:
[PIC]:,[SX]:,[AVR]: ->uP ONLY! [EE]:,[OT]: ->Other [BUY]:,[AD]: ->Ads
It looks like a good site.
I pulled the video card and determined it is an S3 968 as detected but with
64k rather than the 4k that was detected. Now to see if I really have to go
through the install process again to fix the configuation problem.
John Ferrell
6241 Phillippi Rd
Julian NC 27283
Phone: (336)685-9606
Dixie Competition Products
NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
> No kidding. For a new system (including Linux), I'd recommend 256MB
> of *RAM*. If you could fit Linux on 200MB, maybe you could install it
> on one of those CompactFLASH cards. :)
Already done it. Without graphical desktop stuff. RedHat 8.0 running
from 256 MB CF card plugged in as an IDE drive. Loaded from CD-ROM
plugged in as the Slave on the same IDE bus. Un-selected almost all
packages manually during installation from the GUI. Worked fine.
It would probably kill the CF card quickly since swap space was also
created on the card. Read/Write cycles to the same physical locations
on the CF card are bound to be very very high doing that.
A friend and I were just bored one night and wanted to see if it could
be done to create a "no moving parts" Linux machine out of a mini-ITX
motherboard (833 MHz VIA C3 Chipset with no fan... just a heatsink...
man do they run COOOOL) and a CF card for embedded projects.
yeah you really should kill the swap file it would hit the 10k limit *real*
fast i think
perhaps it may be better to get it to run from a ramdrive if you can?
There are two programs that may help you, normally bundled with the
XFree86 packages.
I am not sure about the correct syntax, please other PICLIST members
correct me (I'm using a Windows machine right now), but IIRC, one is
Xconfigurator and the other is XF86Setup. Both will allow you to set all
necessary parameters and test them trying to open an X sesion.
Or look for the documentation and edit manually the file in
"/etc/X11/XF86Config-4". Bellow is mine one, striped off the unused
comments and features. Note that I am brazilian, so the reference for a
brazilian keyboard layout, and I have an ATI video board (detailed on
the "device" section), you have to look for the name and the options of
your board. You may find it on the XFree86 site http://www.xfree86.org/
. Also note that the scan frequencies of your monitor are quite
important, but those programs have a table of brands/models to look for.
>It looks like a good site.
>I pulled the video card and determined it is an S3 968 as detected but with
>64k rather than the 4k that was detected. Now to see if I really have to go
>through the install process again to fix the configuation problem.
>
>John Ferrell
>6241 Phillippi Rd
>Julian NC 27283
>Phone: (336)685-9606
>Dixie Competition Products
>NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
>"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
>
>
One nice option if you are running Xfree4 is to run:
XFree86 -configure
This command will test a lot of things for you and try to guess a
working configuration file.
Hope this helps,
Rodrigo
Francisco Ares writes:
> There are two programs that may help you, normally bundled with the
> XFree86 packages.
>
> I am not sure about the correct syntax, please other PICLIST members
> correct me (I'm using a Windows machine right now), but IIRC, one is
> Xconfigurator and the other is XF86Setup. Both will allow you to set all
> necessary parameters and test them trying to open an X sesion.
>
> Or look for the documentation and edit manually the file in
> "/etc/X11/XF86Config-4". Bellow is mine one, striped off the unused
> comments and features. Note that I am brazilian, so the reference for a
> brazilian keyboard layout, and I have an ATI video board (detailed on
> the "device" section), you have to look for the name and the options of
> your board. You may find it on the XFree86 site http://www.xfree86.org/
> . Also note that the scan frequencies of your monitor are quite
> important, but those programs have a table of brands/models to look for.
>
> You may also try an specific newsgroup, where you would find better
> answers to your questions, like
> groups.google.com/groups?hl=pt&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=alt.linux
> groups.google.com/groups?hl=pt&lr=&ie=UTF-8&group=comp.os.linux.help
>
> Hope this helps.
> Best regards
> Francisco
>
>
> Section "ServerLayout"
> Identifier "Layout0"
> Screen 0 "Screen0" 0 0
> InputDevice "Keyboard0" "CoreKeyboard"
> InputDevice "Mouse0" "CorePointer"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Files"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi:unscaled"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Type1/"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/CID/"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/Speedo/"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/misc/"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/75dpi/"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/100dpi/"
> FontPath "/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/TTF"
> FontPath "//usr/share/fonts/default/Type1"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Module"
> Load "extmod"
> Load "glx"
> Load "dri"
> Load "dbe"
> Load "record"
> Load "freetype"
> Load "type1"
> EndSection
>
> Section "InputDevice"
> Identifier "Keyboard0"
> Driver "keyboard"
> Option "XkbModel" "abnt2"
> Option "XkbLayout" "br"
> EndSection
>
> Section "InputDevice"
> Identifier "Mouse0"
> Driver "mouse"
> Option "Protocol" "PS/2"
> Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
> Option "Emulate3Buttons"
> Option "Emulate3Timeout" "50"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Monitor"
> Identifier "Monitor0"
> VendorName "LG Electronics Inc."
> ModelName "LG StudioWorks 57i"
> HorizSync 30.0 - 70.0
> VertRefresh 50.0 - 120.0
> EndSection
>
> Section "Device"
> Identifier "Card0"
> Driver "ati"
> Option "lcd_center"
> EndSection
>
> Section "Screen"
> Identifier "Screen0"
> Device "Card0"
> Monitor "Monitor0"
> DefaultDepth 24
> SubSection "Display"
> Depth 24
> Modes "1280x1024" "1024x768" "800x600" "640x480"
> EndSubSection
> EndSection
>
> Section "DRI"
> EndSection
>
>
>
>
> John Ferrell wrote:
>
> >It looks like a good site.
> >I pulled the video card and determined it is an S3 968 as detected but with
> >64k rather than the 4k that was detected. Now to see if I really have to go
> >through the install process again to fix the configuation problem.
> >
> >John Ferrell
> >6241 Phillippi Rd
> >Julian NC 27283
> >Phone: (336)685-9606
> >Dixie Competition Products
> >NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
> >"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
> >
> >
>
> --
> http://www.piclist.com hint: The list server can filter out subtopics
> (like ads or off topics) for you. See http://www.piclist.com/#topics
That was the thinking for "version two" -- boot from CF, start
everything on RAM disk. Haven't gotten that far yet... and the project
we needed the thing for we decided not to finish... at least for the
moment...
Nate
Jake Anderson wrote:
>yeah you really should kill the swap file it would hit the 10k limit *real*
>fast i think
>perhaps it may be better to get it to run from a ramdrive if you can?
>
>{Original Message removed}
Subject System:
MB: Asus sp97-v (not ATX form)
CPU: 200 mhz
128 MB Ram
3.01 GB hard drive (599MB free)
CD TEAC CD 512-E
Generic Floppy
Video adapter S3 Vision 968 PCI (PCI Card)
SIS 5513 dual PCI IDE controller
Netgear FA 311 NIC (PCI card)
2 serial, 1 parallel port (built in)
Audio- SB16 Sound Blaster(ISA)
USB controller (PCI card)
Logitech FX Trackball
Currently running:
W98SE
Networked
Attached to Internet via LAN
Full install of Delphi 7 Pro compiler
Microsoft Office97
Forte Free Agent
VNC
Normal use is to have Delphi Pro up & running to use as reference.
Functions well as an Internet browser, word processing, spreadsheets.
Since all of these applications are duplicated elsewhere in my configuration
I plan to bring up Red Hat Linux 8.0 as a learning experience. I ordered the
box edition to make the easiest possible System Generation. I expect only to
lose the Delphi 7 compiler in the process.
Planning:
I have read Chapter 1 as recommended for Novices.
Coming from a Dos background, I am comfortable with the command line.
The book list four options from which to select your install.
Personal Desktop: 1.5G, chosing Gnome & KDE: 1.8G. (I will have to find out
what is Gnome & KDE)(found out: graphic interface)
Workstation: 2.0G.
With Gnome & KDE: 2.3G.
There is a note that says to plan 4G with all Package Groups. (Not a valid
choice in my case.)
Server: min, no graphical interface, 1.3G.
Every thing except graphical interface, 1.4G.
Everything including graphic interface, 2.1G.
Note says that if you want to install all group packages you may want to
allow 2.3G. (I wonder if this is 2.3G more?)
Custom Install: Allows full control over the install. You get to pick what
does/does not install.
Although the Custom install sounds more difficult, I will choose it in hopes
of learning a little more in the process. I am not keeping time on this
install because it is intended to be a learning experience and the
documentation will take a lot more time than a normal install.
I think I better read Chapter 2 before continuing!
Configuration planning:
Should Drivers required be obtained before the install is started?
(it seems that Red Hat thinks it has all that is needed for the install on
the CD's)
Complaints:
The print in this book is very small! Some the screen depiction's cannot be
read without a magnifier. (Red Hat's web site has a copy of the manual
online. I can read it just fine).
2:14 Install start
boot from CD
2:34 Media test was ok, decided to continue with install. It aborted with
message "unable to open display". It appeared to recognize the video
controller and the Sony display though. Looking in the book.
4:30 Done with install & create boot disk.
4:45 Does not want to come up with graphics. Researching the problem after a
break.
5:20 Resume.
6:00 Stop reading Red Hat Docs, go to supper.
6:20 Resume. Found out to shut down system. Will try to reboot from cd and
assure xwindow installed.
7:28 Nothing seemed to solve the problem. I started over again with a text
install of a Personal Desktop.
I selected install everything and it has informed me twice that there is
insufficient disk space to do that, but has not offered a solution. It has
continued to install.
I had an opportunity to go back on the next warning. I reduced the packages
to install and it started installing.
9:30 It is still running, I will let it continue and check back later.
11:15 After I booted this time it came to rest at grub>. I will have to hit
the books again tomorrow.
Monday:
10:00 I cannot find any reference to my problem in Getting Started.
I will start another install and be careful to only include the defaults.
That did not help. I come to a graphic screen with two message boxes with
gibberish.
Tuesday: Reading "Running Linux" by Welsh & Kaufman.
Wednesday:
I have found XF86CONFIG which allows me to configure the
mouse/keyboard/monitor/video adapter. The docs that it exposes indicate
that I need to configure the vid adapter as s3 964 with 64000 k of memory.
Unfortunately, the process is very unforgiving and must be restarted every
errant keystroke. I got to where it says that it cannot save the file
because I need to be "root". After I get some real work done I will figure
out what it means to be "root".
..
I logged on as root & managed to write the file but still no joy. StartX
still fails.
Further attempts at this led to a video config using fixed frequencys that
sort of worked. The screen view was only a portion of the screen and the
mouse (logitec mouseman) was erratic beyond use. Ctl alt backspace brought
Xwindows down but it would come right back up. Finally gave up and am
trying a regen to server configuration. I prefer being able to come up in
text mode so I have configuration control at boot time.
This gen was to server specs. It comes up in text mode and I can
config/startx test- reset to text.
Thursday:
I decided to out flank the video problem. The Motherboard I am using ASUS
SP97-V has an on board video adapter that I have manually (jumpers)
disabled.
I removed the S3 card & booted. The on board chipset SIS (5598 ) was
recognized and auto configured after a prompt. The GUI came up with the
StartX command. I consider it installed.
Wow! The browser found the Internet connection without assistance in spite
of the fact that it is on another machine in the network!
Later: The GUI works OK, but the machine seems slower under Linux than W98.
The removal of the external video graphics adapter has added overhead of the
limited machine.
I have a ways to go to get up the other things I am used to such as network
file sharing, vnc, newsgroups, etc.
I do not see where there was any effort to implement the Motherboard
features normally on the CD that accompanies a new motherboard. There may
not be any
thing missing with this motherboard but I recall what a difference the MB
specific support on ASUS P5A MB. This is a real concern.
If the problem had not been encountered, the install would have went in
about 3-4 casual hours. With the problem I took a test drive through
available information in the package and on the 'net. My conclusion is that
self support via the internet is practical.
John Ferrell
6241 Phillippi Rd
Julian NC 27283
Phone: (336)685-9606
Dixie Competition Products
NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
Check http://www.xfree86.org to see if your video board is supported, and if
so, check their docs. I have posted a copy of my configuration file a
few days ago, so you may compare with yours and try a manual
configuration of your PCI video board (allways keep a backup copy of
whatever config files are working ;-) .
Regardeing performance, I don't know about RedHat, but normally the
distributions comes with packages compiled for '386. Check if your
kernel is in this case or if the installation procedure auto-detected
your processor and installed a kernel compiled for your kind of
processor. Look in the CD a directory full of *.rpm files, check if
there are some kernel*.rpm (kernel*.i386.rpm , kernel*.i486.rpm ,
kernel*.i586.rpm , ...) and then read the manual for the rpm
install/uninstall program typing on a shell prompt "man rpm" (without
the quotes, obviously); PgDwn and PgUp to read and "q" to quit. After
that you shoud be able to force (the normal procedure will say that the
package with that version of the kernel is already installed) the
install of the kernel package that is more suitable for your processor.
Later on, you will find on one of your CDs a directory full of files
*.srpm that are the source code of the *.rpm files. using the same rpm
program, you will be able to compile all source code and generate new
*.rpm files compiled for your processor, thus achieving maximum performance.
Thanks for the guidance. It is time for me to drop the Linux topic because I
am certain that it has exceeded the noise threshold for most of the list
even with the OT tag. The help I have received here boosted me over the
worst of the learning curve and I will continue with the project. I do not
see abandoning Windows any time soon, but I have greatly increased my
options!
John Ferrell
6241 Phillippi Rd
Julian NC 27283
Phone: (336)685-9606
Dixie Competition Products
NSRCA 479 AMA 4190 W8CCW
"My Competition is Not My Enemy"
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