Re: Challenge - Getting Debian Working on a Pair of Real Old Laptops
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
Scarletdown wrote:
> I have a pair of old P-I based Toshiba Laptops (Satellite Pro 425CDT and
> Portege 650CT), and I am trying to figure out how to get a working
> Debian installation on them. These laptops are very light on RAM. The
> Satellite has 40MB (which I believe is the most she can take), and the
> Portege has 24MB (can take up to 80MB).
>
> Both of them have successfully run Windows 98SE, so I figure they should
> be able to run an ultra lightweight Debian desktop as well. For the
> local desktop setup, which will just be mostly for maintenance purposes,
> I am wanting to use LXDE as my desktop environment with the only
> additional X-based apps installed being XMMS (these have decent on board
> sound, so it would be a shame to let it go to waste), and Dillo, for
> basic graphical web browsing.
>
> The primary use for these two laptops however, will be as thin clients
> which would connect to another more fully featured Debian system via
> XDMCP. For this, I will use GDM, since none of the other login managers
> I have tried have any easy way to select remote login as a session.
>
> So anyway, I have run a test install, by first doing a minimal net
> install of Stable on my "build box" and upgrading to Sid. After
> transferring the drive from the build box to one of the laptops, I was
> greeted with a kernel panic (same with when I tried it in the other
> laptop). I don't recall what the actual full error messages were, but
> apparently, neither 24MB or 40MB are sufficient to run a bare bones
> console only implementation of Debian?
>
> I am guessing that these laptops can't use a 2.6 kernel, since I tried
> Damn Small Linux (which uses 2.4) on them just to see if I could get a
> working desktop, and was able to run Fluxbox and get on the Web with
> Dillo.
>
> So now that I know that these laptops can boot up into functional Linux
> systems, are there any suggestions I might try to get a proper "pure"
> Debian setup on them? I don't want to go with DSL, because there are
> just too many annoying little details to configure manually. Come to
> think of it, I don't really want to go with any live distro.
>
> Suggestions? Pointers? Tips?
>
>
>
>
>
>
My 480CDT was great with Sid, Till it died (housemates spilled beer on it).
My trick was aptitude purge python. (I'm a python coder so I put it
back), but that strips the system down.
You can also pass init=/bin/sh to the kernel and work your way up fom
there..
- --
Rich Healey - healey.rich@gmail.com
Developer / Systems Admin - OpenPGP: 0x8C8147807
MSN: bitchohealey@hotmail.com AIM: richohealey33
irc.psych0tik.net -> #hbh #admins richohealey
irc.freenode.org -> #hbh #debian PythonNinja
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (Darwin)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/
iEYEARECAAYFAki/lFYACgkQLeTfO4yBSAfLLACaAnp8Dd1Jx45w/dziyIwX0nVc
Q+IAnRBRH+eXkZ3iVvpktUK5rr/4K5a/
=0rQg
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
Reply to: