On Sunday 17 June 2007 8:36 pm, Andrew J. Barr wrote: > This is a 1995-vintage machine (guessing by the BIOS copyright date on > the bottom) with a Pentium 75 and 16 MB of RAM (originally 8 until I > found a loose RAM expansion card under the floppy disk, heh heh). It > has no CDROM, no USB, no Ethernet. It does have a floppy disk, a > parallel port*, and two PCMCIA slots. My preferred method of > installation is a CompactFlash card in a PCMCIA sleeve, both for space > and speed reasons. However, memory, or lack thereof is proving a > problem for debian-installer. I have tried sarge, etch, and lenny > hd-media images and they all fail in various stages of the kernel boot, > most of the time before userland is started, sometimes panicking, > sometimes just hanging. The same applies to the floppies from Etch > (have not tried Sarge) but the Lenny installer does start in low-memory > mode, but I am having issues figuring out how to get network drivers > and/or packages onto this machine--all I have in the way of PCMCIA > (e.g. 16-bit) networking hardware is a D-Link DWL-650 rev.P, which > requires the HostAP driver and loadable firmware, neither of which are > included with the Lenny installer. > > Anyone have any ideas of what I can do with this machine, including > other Linux distributions and/or operating systems (e.g. FreeDOS)? > Ultimately I'd like to get Debian in some form on the machine but > right now it looks like I can't really afford to be picky. > > I'd rather not spend too much money on this machine, none preferably. > It's just an idle hobby, and I already spend enough money on my other > machines as it is. So in other words, I'd like to work with what I > have, if at all possible. > > * I have a "LapLink" parallel cable suitable for PLIP...I _think_...if I > didn't give it away...I'd rather not go rooting in the attic for that > (have not tried Sarge) but the Lenny installer does start in low-memory > mode, but I am having issues figuring out how to get network drivers > and/or packages onto this machine--all I have in the way of PCMCIA > (e.g. 16-bit) networking hardware is a D-Link DWL-650 rev.P, which > requires the HostAP driver and loadable firmware, neither of which are > included with the Lenny installer. > > Anyone have any ideas of what I can do with this machin > if at all possible. > > -- > Andrew J. Barr > > Woke up in my clothes again this morning, > don't know exactly where I am... Tricky situation, but can you do a floppy boot to netinst? I think this will work for you if you create an additional floppy disk with your network card's drivers/firmware on it. During the installation process, exit to a prompt to get the drivers/firmware from the floppy. -- Matthew K Poer <matthewpoer@gmail.com> Location: GA, USA Web: http://matthewpoer.freehostia.com GnuPG Public Key: 4DD0A9A6 Keyserver: subkeys.pgp.net
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