Re: HELP: formatting the hard drive
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> > I just purchased a CD with Debian on it and I wanted to install it
> > on my 486DX-2. It has 8 MB of RAM and two HD of 220 MB each. From
> > what I read, it should be just enough for Linux to run. Can anyone
> > confirm/suggest anything with a system this low?
>
> I can confirm that it is enough, but that depends on what you want to run
> on the machine. I suggest that you start with the default packages minus
> everything related to news such as inews and inn. You probably can
> install X, but I would keep it light--only one Xserver, and only the
> minimum in fonts and documentation. Do not install any dev packages
> unless and until you know you need them.
I can confirm it personally. I've used Linux on 486DX/40 with 8M RAM, on
170MB HD only. I've got installed 20MB swap partition, base system, TeX
and XWindows and everything was running well, and even all 8 of my users
had enough of disk space for themselves. OK - it was not Debian, but
Slackware (2.3, I think).
> > I also have a P133 with 16MB of ram. I originally installed Linux
> > on this machine, but I now need it for CAD. I would like to remove
> > Linux from it but I have been unable via standard methods (ie:
> > bootable floppy to format HD). Any suggestions on how I can format
> > the hard drive so that I can installed (*yikes*) Windows '95?
>
> If you can get your hands on some DOS system floppies, you can do the
> following: boot into DOS, run FDISK.EXE and delete all the partitions on
> the HD. Rewrite the partition table with one DOS FAT partition. Reboot
> again so the partition table will be read, and then use the command
> "FORMAT C:". You will need to have a DOS floppy with FDISK and FORMAT.
> At this point, or even after you simply use FDISK, you should be able to
> use a Win '95 install floppy for the OEM version or whatever setup disk
> you might have (DOS, Win 3.1, etc.).
I've recently tried another approach with my friend's computer - she's got
Linux installed and needed to reinstal the disk with W95. So I've started
Linux, unmounted all unnecessary partitions, disabled swap, and after that
run fdisk (Linux), deleted root partition, created new partition for W95
(with appropriate type) and wrote the partition table. After that all that
I had to do was shutdown Linux and run installation of W95 from boot
diskette. Yes, I didn't need to backup anything, so if you have to, do it
before you change partition table. :-)
Just my $0.02,
Petr Barta
PGP key: http://orin.czech.net/pgp.key
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