[ltp] ISO Suggestions for 750P

[Richard Neill]

Chris Schumann wrote:
> I've got a ThinkPad 750P here that holds a special place in my geek heart.
> It's my first PC ever, and I want to put Linux on it.
> 
> It's got a 33MHz 486, 12GB disk (BIOS sees 8GB), 36MB RAM, a WD90C24 video
> chip with 1MB VRAM, and a CS4248 audio chip, and an untethered pen.
> 

Try some of the floppy-based distros?  Tomsrtbt should work. As for an 
install, something like DSL is probably ideal. DSL normally runs from a 
liveCD, but shouldn't be too hard to install.

As for the actual installation, I'd probably proceed something like this:

1) Do a basic install onto your desktop system or a spare HDD, or with 
the laptop drive mounted in the desktop. (Or even with 
chroot/vrmware/etc). This will give you the ability to set up the 
software you want, using a fast CPU to make it less painful. You should 
then have a working set of directories (bin, /sbin etc)

2) Use tomsrtbt to make a filesystem on the laptop, and copy (cp -a) the 
files across.

3) Make the bootloader work. (Run lilo, once everything is in the target 
system).

This process works better than you'd expect. It's also usually possible 
to take a kernel+initrd from one system and put them into a different 
system altogether: I once 'upgraded' Mandrake 9.1 with a knoppix kernel 
2.6 in order to make a wifi card work).

As for apps, the ones supplied with DSL are a great choice. Or you could 
look at the ones used on the ipaq. A good use for this machine might be 
as a music-player, mounting the music directory over ssh/nfs.

A last thought: what about some of the Linux terminal server things? It 
will run just fine as a thin client.

Hope some of those ideas help.

Richard