Linux on a 386?

knoppix_knight · 09-11-2004, 08:55 AM

ok i am pretty sure i wont have enough info but here goes. i want to put a linux distro with GUI on a 386 computer with only 64mb of RAMM and a smalll (unsure of how small) hard drive. Any help on this will be greatly appreciated.

enyawix · 09-11-2004, 10:04 AM

Debian is your best bet. If you have a faster box use Gentoo. Build the apps on the faster box. I can build the apps for you. Just give me the shipping cost if you live far away.

ZooL · 09-11-2004, 12:13 PM

A 386 with 64mb ram!!! Are you sure about that? That's a hell of a lot of RAM for a 386!

w33k · 09-11-2004, 12:44 PM

ive got a 486 with a 128MB RAM

guzzi · 09-11-2004, 01:17 PM

This is great. I started with Linux on a 386 with somewhere around 16M RAM.

The distro was Slackware 3 something that was in my first Linux book (The Linux Bible "The GNU Testiment")

As I recall, it took almost two days to compile a kernel.

I recomend that you do this sort of thing just to understand better that warm fuzzy feeling of a faster machine.

Good Luck.

db391 · 09-11-2004, 07:35 PM

yes slackware rules for older systems like 486s or slack 7 for 386s
i gess u use memory expansion cards to get 64MB to run on an old 386??

LavaDevil94 · 09-11-2004, 11:45 PM

I have a Slack-based distro called SmallLinux on my laptop (a 486 with 4MB of RAM), and things are pretty great, just never got X working on it (although it is possible, there's a version of X called TinyX that runs in less than 4MB of RAM). I even use the thing to compile C programs, like a portable developemnt station.

kamstrup · 09-12-2004, 08:11 AM

If it has a CDROM-drive I suggest some of the smaller live distros like
- Damn small linux
- Featherlinux
- Puppylinux
They ought to be compiled for 386 arch. I think it is possible to install them to hd (even very small ones).