# 486dx2-50MHz, 16 MB, 300 MB - Brave or Stupid

## kermitjunior

My recent success is going to my head!

I'm thinking of putting Gentoo on this system.  True, i'll probably have to compile elsewhere and floppy it over (no external, no eth).

Any suggestions on how to do this?  I could let it run for a month or two to bootstrap. But I don't even think there's enough room there. I have an old HD45.  Bootstraping via Parallel... that might be a first.

Wish me luck!

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## mglauche

should be doable, if you use another machine for install. the 300 mb can be tough (i did install gentoo on a 1gb hd machine, and i'm allways out of space  :Razz: ), but other than that it should make a fine router  :Wink: 

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## kermitjunior

 *mglauche wrote:*   

>  ), but other than that it should make a fine router 

 

Maybe you missed the "no network card" hehe.  I'm just going to use it in class to take basic notes. might even have to learn vi.  oooohhhhh.

Can use it as a thin client, too, I guess.

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## AlterEgo

16 MB   :Question: 

That's TIGHT; probably too tight.

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## clacour

My first suggestion would be to get an Ethernet card, unless this things so old it can't even handle PCMCIA (which given the specs, I could believe...).

Your first problem is going to be how to get anything on it, given that you have no operating system.

My recommendation would be Tom's RootBoot (www.toms.net), which is a one-floppy Linux distribution. His brag is that it is "the most Linux that will fit on a single floppy", and he does a pretty good job of living up to it. It's rather incredible how much stuff he gets on there. It loads the entire thing into RAM, so you have the floppy drive available after it boots.

"dump" and "restore" would be capable of creating and reading the floppies, so if tomsrtbt has "restore", you'd have that handled.

The idea of messing with 200+ floppies gives me nightmares, however, so I'd seriously consider some other possibilities.

One that I would almost guarantee will work would be PPP across a serial cable. (I believe it would have to be what's called a "null-modem" cable. I know there are 3 or 4 main flavors of serial cable, but that's about all I know -- you might want to try to find somebody with expertise in that area before trying it.)

There's also SLIP and PLIP, which are designed for the same general purpose, but which I've never used. Since the parallel port would be significantly faster than the serial port, it might be worth trying to get that to work.

Actually, with PPP, you could do a semi-standard install, although you'd probably want to use pre-compiled packages.

Another option to consider is doing Linux From Scratch (LFS -- www.linuxfromscratch.org).  It's a lot more work than Gentoo, in some respects, but it would be pretty easy to fit in 300 Meg. Gentoo might be a bit of a challenge there.

One thing you can do to cut down on hard disk space requirements is lop off all the Portage stuff (/usr/portage, /var/cache, /var/db, etc). If you're never going to have network connectivity, that stuff's pointless.

With text-mode Linux, I don't see 16 meg as a problem. You MIGHT have to go to a 2.2 kernel, but I really don't think it will be a big deal. You will need plenty of swap space, though -- I'd recommend at least 48MB. (Which is a lot out of a total of 300...)

When you're compiling the kernel, be aggressive about turning stuff OFF. Standard Linux assuming you're going to have networking, a CD, and a number of other things you WON'T have. The hard disk space savings will be minor, but it might save you enough to matter in memory usage.

I just thought of another reason you might want to go with LFS, rather than Gentoo. You're going to have difficulty getting individual packages (or updates) over to this machine, because when Gentoo makes .bz2 packages, they're not really .bz2. They're a bzipped file, followed by a couple of oddball files (see the xpack Python script). Trying to uncompress it as a .bz2 file blows up in your face. If you have to have enough of Portage (and its support structure, like Python) to unpack those properly, you're going to lose 40-50 MB of disk space.

Another off-the-wall idea -- why not FreeDOS? It will install from one or two floppies, and has an editor good enough for taking notes. 16 MB RAM and 300 MB of harddrive is HUGE by its standards (I used to use Word 2.0 on a DOS machine with 10 MB of hard disk space, and didn't feel cramped at all.)

Of course, putting Linux on it is worth a LOT more geek points.  :Wink: 

If tomsrtbt doesn't have quite what you need on it, I've had a fair amount of practice at building bootable CDs, which covers a lot of the ground necessary for a bootable, self-contained floppy. (Ask soon if you want to go that route, though, because I read the forums in spurts. Once I quit again, it might be several months before I come back to them.)

Hope this helps,

CHL

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## kermitjunior

 *clacour wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Another off-the-wall idea -- why not FreeDOS?
> 
> Of course, putting Linux on it is worth a LOT more geek points. 
> ...

 

Geek points? What... Why.... Who.... why the heck else would I want to install Gentoo on it? It's ALL about geek points. hehe.  I was thinking, though.... I have an old HD45 parallel external hardrive.  Now, I know it would be suicidal, but I could use that to do Gentoo.  Admittedly, it would be superslow on bootstrap..... hehe.

Here's the question... let's say I get a kernel with PARIDE (Tom's has it, I think)  How would get to it to run everything?  I'll have to check the PARIDE howto.  But what's the min I can do for /boot ?  And what's the smallest I'm looking for gentoo after bootstrap, assuming I keep all the portage stuff on the Parallel drive...

Crap, I had to go and start something crazy... gonna drive me nuts now until I figure it out.

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## Craigo

 *Quote:*   

> I'm thinking of putting Gentoo on this system.

 

Please stop right there.. 16mb.. my god. Are you trying to accomplish computer suicide?

Next someone would be saying they got a 386........

-/Craigo/-

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## Lovechild

The install guide stats 64mb ram and 64megs of swap as the minimum I think... but I say... This is so crazy that even I wouldn't think of doing it...... GO FOR IT YOU WACKO....

 :Smile: 

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## pjp

Of interest might be this post.  After that, step on over to this one.

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## clacour

 *Quote:*   

> Geek points?...  It's ALL about geek points. hehe. 

 

Ok, I got it. You fooled me with that stuff about using it to take notes.

 *Quote:*   

> I was thinking, though.... I have an old HD45 parallel external hardrive. Now, I know it would be suicidal, but I could use that to do Gentoo. Admittedly, it would be superslow on bootstrap..... hehe.

 

What's the capacity on it? (I would have assumed 45 Meg, but that's not enough to make a difference.)  Also, I don't quite follow the "be superslow on bootstrap"? What's additional hard drive space got to do with the bootstrap process?

Obviously, the more of ANY kind of resource you can throw at this beast, the better, but I would have thought CPU and memory constraints would hurt the bootstrap more than disk.

Am I missing something?

 *Quote:*   

> Here's the question... let's say I get a kernel with PARIDE (Tom's has it, I think) How would get to it to run everything? I'll have to check the PARIDE howto. 

 

Are you thinking of schlepping the parallel HD back and forth between the two machines as a "network"?

I don't see any problem with getting a kernel that would support, PARIDE, the regular hard drive, and the floppy.  (Reminds me -- I assume Beastly doesn't have a CD drive, either?)

Make a bootable floppy disk with that kernel and the basic commands to mount the other stuff and you should be set to go.

 *Quote:*   

> But what's the min I can do for /boot ? And what's the smallest I'm looking for gentoo after bootstrap, assuming I keep all the portage stuff on the Parallel drive...

 

I don't quite follow the question. In one sense, the answer is zero -- put everything in "/". I suspect that wasn't how you meant it, though. Clarification, please?

I untarred a stage 3 tarball onto a spare partition, and it was about 325 MB. 

After I deleted /usr/lib/gcc-lib and /usr/lib/python2 (and docs for same), it was a bit under 200 MB.

Of course, if you can't run Portage, it's questionable whether you can still call it Gentoo...   :Smile: 

From the sound of it, you're planning to start from a stage 1 or stage 2 setup. That might give you the opportunity to trim out some other stuff to make it all fit.

You mentioned putting the Portage stuff on the HD45. It'd take a fair amount of link-building to get all of it (gcc, gcc-lib, python, the stuff in /var, etc) but that would save you that 125 MB, and still give you a legitimate Gentoo system. Be an interesting exercise in just what was needed.

 *Quote:*   

> Crap, I had to go and start something crazy... gonna drive me nuts now until I figure it out.

 

Well, that gets back to the "brave or stupid" stuff. You obviously have some idea of what you're getting into, so you're not stupid.

My personal opinion is that trying to put a distribution that is designed for a fast cpu, lots of memory, and a high-bandwidth Internet connection on a machine with a very slow cpu, little memory, and no network connection means you're madder than a March Hare drinking mercury, but that's just me. Don't let it stop you....   :Very Happy: 

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## kermitjunior

 *clacour wrote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Geek points?...  It's ALL about geek points. hehe.  
> 
> Ok, I got it. You fooled me with that stuff about using it to take notes.

 

Didn't mean to throw you off too much... I will be using it to take notes... in about a year after it is done compiling. (i hope) :Laughing: 

 *Quote:*   

>  *Quote:*   I was thinking, though.... I have an old HD45 parallel external hardrive. Now, I know it would be suicidal, but I could use that to do Gentoo. Admittedly, it would be superslow on bootstrap..... hehe. 
> 
> What's the capacity on it? (I would have assumed 45 Meg, but that's not enough to make a difference.)  Also, I don't quite follow the "be superslow on bootstrap"? What's additional hard drive space got to do with the bootstrap process?
> 
> Obviously, the more of ANY kind of resource you can throw at this beast, the better, but I would have thought CPU and memory constraints would hurt the bootstrap more than disk.
> ...

 

Ok, well I have a few extra hard drives, so I was thinking a 1.2GB for the HD45.  The bootstrap comment was referring to my plan of putting portage and some most of the /var onto the external device.  I want this project to be a "legitimate gentoo" distro, so that's a must (Yes, I'm still arguing the point of "WHY" even to myself... just something I have to try now.) 

     SO I was thinking that bootstraping would take forever having to fetch info from ext drive, bring it back, crunch it, put it back, etc.

 *Quote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Here's the question... let's say I get a kernel with PARIDE (Tom's has it, I think) How would get to it to run everything? I'll have to check the PARIDE howto.  
> 
> Are you thinking of schlepping the parallel HD back and forth between the two machines as a "network"?

 

No, just using it for the portage stuff.  Oh, I'm going out today to fork over the money for a cheap pcmcia ethernet card... I think only about $40.

Edit:  :Embarassed:  I decided just now, before leaving, to "take a quick look" at this pitiful old laptop (a freind gave it to me, btw) and lo and behold, but a 3Com Etherlink III (3C589b) was staring back at me.  My only thought was:  :Cool: 

 *Quote:*   

> I don't see any problem with getting a kernel that would support, PARIDE, the regular hard drive, and the floppy.  (Reminds me -- I assume Beastly doesn't have a CD drive, either?)

 

Now that would make things way too simple:!:   :Laughing: 

 *Quote:*   

> Make a bootable floppy disk with that kernel and the basic commands to mount the other stuff and you should be set to go.

 

If I can figure out how... hehe.  I'll work on that.

 *Quote:*   

>  *Quote:*   But what's the min I can do for /boot ? And what's the smallest I'm looking for gentoo after bootstrap, assuming I keep all the portage stuff on the Parallel drive... 
> 
> I don't quite follow the question. In one sense, the answer is zero -- put everything in "/". I suspect that wasn't how you meant it, though. Clarification, please?

 

I was under the impression (misled in my ignorance) that the /boot had to be a separate partition in case of file system corruption.  That way I always have  bootable system (in theory) and won't have to do this ever again.  I think I can get by with 1 or 2 meg for the kernel and GRUB. Sound right?

 *Quote:*   

> I untarred a stage 3 tarball onto a spare partition, and it was about 325 MB. 
> 
> After I deleted /usr/lib/gcc-lib and /usr/lib/python2 (and docs for same), it was a bit under 200 MB.
> 
> Of course, if you can't run Portage, it's questionable whether you can still call it Gentoo...  

 

Under 200 still leaves rooms for an editor or two (maybe even tinyX8O )

[quote]

From the sound of it, you're planning to start from a stage 1 or stage 2 setup. That might give you the opportunity to trim out some other stuff to make it all fit.

You mentioned putting the Portage stuff on the HD45. It'd take a fair amount of link-building to get all of it (gcc, gcc-lib, python, the stuff in /var, etc) but that would save you that 125 MB, and still give you a legitimate Gentoo system. Be an interesting exercise in just what was needed.[quote]

I confess that my title of n00b is deserving. I've played with linux for about 7 years, but I'm just now hitting adolesence.  I might require some help with that.

 *Quote:*   

>  *Quote:*   Crap, I had to go and start something crazy... gonna drive me nuts now until I figure it out. 
> 
> Well, that gets back to the "brave or stupid" stuff. You obviously have some idea of what you're getting into, so you're not stupid.

 

Let's wait a bit until we judge me not stupid... see your next quote.

 *Quote:*   

> My personal opinion is that trying to put a distribution that is designed for a fast cpu, lots of memory, and a high-bandwidth Internet connection on a machine with a very slow cpu, little memory, and no network connection means you're madder than a March Hare drinking mercury, but that's just me. Don't let it stop you....  

 

Well, I think to start I'll take that as a compliment (aren't all budding geniuses referred to as mad!?)  hey.. maybe it will start something.... someone will try a 386 or something.  I might even have a 286 laying around........  :Twisted Evil: 

K, well I'm gonna go buy my network card.  Then I'm going to try and figure out how to mount my HD45 (I can't find the PARIDE howto.  Where would I figure out how to mount that?).  I'll format it under my bigbox and then see what happens.

Also, I'm thinking 90MB on the hdd for the swap and 210 for root.  That should barely squeeze it in to get started, wouldn't you think?  And how would I start the process?  I was thinking of the following:

1) Format HD45 drive with two partitions: 50MB with stage1.tar(untarred?) and 1.2 with empty ext2.

2) Use tomsr to format hard drive and partition into 2MB, 90MB, 208MB for boot, swap and root, respectively.

3) Mount external drive empty space as /var.  Then mount the stage1 partition as /install or something.  (what would be the dev I'm mounting?)

4) start the install.

Question: what flags should I untar with to the ext drive?  What problems do you see? (other than external will have to be connected for now since it is var.)

Is that completely wrong or am I in the ball park?  First, let me say thank you for your help so far and, hopefully, in the future.

I'm off to Fry's!

Kermit

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## chatgris

I jstu read this thread with lots of interest..

How's the compile going?   :Very Happy: 

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## pilla

Are you going to film it and send to "Jackass" ??  :Smile:  Seriously, good luck!

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## kermitjunior

Well, it seems the HD45 doesn't want to work.  I went on vacation and came back to a new semester of catching up.  I still have not forgotten.... hehe.

I DO have an ethernet card that works, thought.  My problem is that the dhcp doesn't seem to work with my SMC Barricade (SMC7004AWBR) using any of the boot floppies (Toms, etc).  So for now, it has to wait.  I managed to get rusty my few months away and I even forgot my root password!   :Embarassed: 

I'm downloading rc2 now.  I think I might even go with stage3 and recompile at a later time with optimized flags.  we'll see.  Thanks for checking though... I'll post when I start to have success... and the laptop will be stage1, I hope!

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## kalisphoenix

 *kermitjunior wrote:*   

> Well, it seems the HD45 doesn't want to work.  I went on vacation and came back to a new semester of catching up.  I still have not forgotten.... hehe.
> 
> I DO have an ethernet card that works, thought.  My problem is that the dhcp doesn't seem to work with my SMC Barricade (SMC7004AWBR) using any of the boot floppies (Toms, etc).  So for now, it has to wait.  I managed to get rusty my few months away and I even forgot my root password!  
> 
> I'm downloading rc2 now.  I think I might even go with stage3 and recompile at a later time with optimized flags.  we'll see.  Thanks for checking though... I'll post when I start to have success... and the laptop will be stage1, I hope!

 

Did you ever make it any further?

I've got a Toshiba Satellite T2130CS (16MB RAM, 486DX/4) that I think I'm going to LFS.  The good thing is that I ripped a 2GB HD out of an old Powerbook and threw it in here, so I'm not as bad on the subject of space.  

Yeah.

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## mpsii

Seriously...

Debian floppy installation... apt-get install X-Windows gives you IceWM still, IIRC. After that, abiword and you are done.

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## secondshadow

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> Next someone would be saying they got a 386........ 
> 
> 

 

Ever look at the technical sys-req for linux? 386.

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> I might even have a 286 laying around........ 
> 
> 

 

Nope...unfortunately the linux kernel requires a 386 minimum. ALTHOUGH I do remember a 286 port now that I think about it. I'm sure it doesn't support too much though  :Smile: 

You'll definately want to have swap space, I have a K6-2 w/ 32 megs of ram and if it doesn't have swap space up it starts randomly killing processes.

PERSONALLY, I think an LFS solution is probably the most feasable for you on that laptop. Its a quite bit more work and not as easy to keep up to date, but considering the hardware I'm not really certain that this should really be a concern.

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