Resurrecting a box for Linux

[Bob Raymond]

On Mon, 2002-09-02 at 08:25, Stuart Biggerstaff wrote:
> With a P-60 anything will be slow, if you are used to using
> something faster than, say, a P-100.  But at the same time,
> if you bring memory to at least 64 MB you should be able to
> install and run most Linux distributions--but you probably
> know that.

If I buy "House-Brand" or "Generic" memory, I could get 128mb for about
36 bucks.  The speed doesn't really bother me (this was the household's
only system until '99, and my only computer for two months in 2001).

> Will the BIOS do the 1.2 GB drive?  If it won't, an IDE card
> might be a better addition than the SCSI card you mention,
> since the 1.2 will hold most OSs reasonable well.  If you are
> limited to a small drive, Slackware seems to allow a smaller
> install footprint than most.  It is fairly easy to put a useful
> setup with X in under 325 MB.  An easy way to do that is to
> start with Zipslack, which puts a non-graphical install into
> under 100 MB.  Then just install the few more packages needed.
> Zipslack is designed to run on a FAT partition, but they have
> instructions on migrating it to ext2.

The BIOS has recognized a 3GB drive perfectly, as it's had at least one
BIOS upgrade.  I was planning on using Gentoo (and just removing
downloaded files, etc.) but I might try Slackware.  Might I be able to
use the XFS filesystem?  That's what I've been using with Gentoo, and
don't really have much desire to go back to the world of fsck'ing.

> I agree with Lonni about TWM, but FVWM (and FVWM2 and FVWM95)
> is small and fast, and provides something of the look and feel we
> get used to with XFCE, Gnome, KDE, or Windows.  Just have to configure
> it by editing a text file instead of graphical utilities.  Add TKDesk
> (which gives a useful panel for launching applications, and a file
> manager), and it is a nice GUI that works well on even a 486 with
> 32 MB.

I've used FVWM2 before, but I'm not sure- XFCE just seems a bit nicer. 
Maybe with TKDesk I'd like it.

Thanks,

Bob Raymond