[ltp] Best distro for 760XD

[Christopher Sawtell]

On Thu, 01 Dec 2005 17:56, Mendel Cooper wrote:
> I just picked up a 760XD Thinkpad for a few bucks. Just wondering
> what would be the best Linux distro to install on it.
>
> Specs for the 760XD:
> 166 MHz Pentium MMX
> 64M memory (could upgrade to 80M or 104)
> 12" 1024x768 screen
> 2 Gb HD (could upgrade to 3 or 4, if necessary)
>
> The main problem is that it can't boot from the CD drive.
> Can't have CD drive and floppy plugged in at the same time, either.
> This means I have to use something like loadlin.exe to boot from.
>
> Now, I could always install Red Hat 9, current as of 2-1/2 years ago,
> but I'd rather do something a bit more up to date.
>
> Damn Small Linux maybe?
>
> What would you people recommend?
I have been running Gentoo [1] for about 2 years and would use that.
The mantra is:- "Choice and control".

Assuming that you have another somewhat more powerful machine with a CD-ROM 
drive, and a network connection between the 760XD and the other machine.

You could boot the 760XD laptop machine using the BG-Rescue [2] 2 floppy 
set. You could then load whatever software you like onto it. In contrast 
to several other floppy-based Linux systems the chroot command in 
BG-Rescue actually works correctly. Thus you can download an image of a 
basic Linux such as he Gentoo stage 1 to the lappie and then change the 
Linux root into that image from the floppy to complete the installation 
process.

While Gentoo is not for the unsupported total neophyte, it is nothing like 
as difficult to install as it is sometimes made out to be. It's definitely 
not 'rocket science'. Before everybody jumps all over me whining and 
whinging about compilation, there are binary packages for all the main 
applications, besides which you can always compile applications on a 
faster machine and transfer the resulting binary packages to the lappie.

I'd suggest a lightweight Desktop such as: FVWM [3]; or xfce [4]; etc., or 
perhaps ratpoison [5] if you are a dedicated command line user forced to 
have X-11 running by force of circumstance.

[1] http://www.gentoo.org/
[2] http://www.giannone.de/
[3] http://www.fvwm.org/
[4] http://www.xfce.org/
[5] http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_RatPoison

hth - ymmv - have fun!

-- 
CS