[ltp] New...

[Charles E Taylor IV]

On Tue, 09 Jul 2002 22:52:07 +0100
Steven Crane <steven@plansofmice.co.uk> wrote:

> ...I am wondering if the responses to Steve's questions have overlooked
> two of his original parameters.  First he is new to Linux and second he
> wants to limit the space available to Linux to about 3 Gb of the 6.4 Gb
> on his hard drive...

If you only have 3 GB or so to burn, you can still fit a more modern Linux
distribution with space for work onto the Thinkpad - provided you don't go
overboard with installing everything on all the CDs.  My Thinkpad
(running RH 7.2 right now) only has a 4 gb drive.

> As mentioned, I have been through the RH 6.1 install on a very old PC.
> One which was assembled form spare parts and contained no "identifiably
> branded" components at all. I got it to work after a fashion in only a
> few hours and it took up only a few hundred megs of drive space.

A newer Linux distribution like RH 7.2/7.3 will take up more of the disk
space, but will also support some more modern applications (new Gnome or
KDE, Mozilla) without fiddling and without having to download / compile
everything yourself - which CAN take large amounts of hard drive space and
time.  As long as you don't click "Install everything" in the install, you
should be fine with 3 gigs.

> My initial reservation regarding newer versions is that the "suggested
> minimum" amount of HD space has shot up rather a lot. I'm pretty sure
> that it can be made to fit, but if RH 6.1 can reasonably be relied on to
> work without blowing anything up, then it'll do as a place to start.

I used (before it died) RH 7.2 on a Thinkpad 760XD with a 3 gig drive with
no troubles - except the unsupported mwave sound/modem.  I couldn't cart
around my mp3 collection, but I could get my work done.

> There seems to be a good amount of archive material on the web refering 
> to the installation of RH 6.x on a 600e, I will probably run with this
> old "distro" anyway. I know it will fit and, according to IBM, it should
> idenitfy all but the necessary sound settings straight from the box.

Most of it's applicable to later distros too - at least the sound part is.
 I used the 600 setup guide to get sound to work properly on my 380XD. :)

-- 
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*  Charles Taylor <tomalek@mindspring.com>
*  Chemistry teacher, Linux enthusiast!
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*  College Chemistry website: http://home.mindspring.com/~charletiv/
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