DEBIAN 2.0 and old 386 machines

[Hartmut Schmude <hschmude@gmx.net>]

Recently I tried to install DEBIAN 2.0 -kernel 2.0.34 - on an
old 386 machine with the following configuration:

mainbord 386 with CT 82C206 / 301 / 302 Chipset
no copro
ISA bus only
8 Meg memory
Adaptec 1542 C
2 SCSI Disks with 240 M and 4.3 G
VGA Tseng ET4000 (generic)
multi IO for lp and serial

During the installation procedure - mainly when dpkg starts its
work after having installed the base system - dpkg ends up
with segmentation faults and the system is only partial usable.
Only ls and some other minor commands still work, but it is
impossible to do a ps or reboot. New logins are impossible,
sometimes init complains aboout gettys respawning too fast.
There is no way arround the reset-switch.

I tried out a customized kernel built on an other machine 
with only 386 support, copro emulation etc. with the same
results.

As on this machine, in formwer times, linux was run, I tried
to reinstall the old system, a SuSE-Slackware with kernel 1.2.13,
and - it worked!

Why the he@* the Debian System is unwilling to do the job?
Is it a matter of kernel/lib versions?

Any hints?

                    TIA

                           Hartmut Schmude

hschmude@gmx.net