[ltp] a bit OT: Linux for a 386/2MB machine?

[Martin Samuelsson]

André Wyrwa @ 2005-05-05 (Thursday), 18:21 (+0200)
> i coincidentially got an old Highscreen 386 notebook into my hands, very
> cute. Trouble is it only has 2MB of mem and most of the one disk linux
> distros require at least 4MB.
> 
> Is anyone having recommendation for a distro i could try with 2MB?

When dealing with that kind of systems I guess you're down to either
chosing a really old distro or doing it all yourself. Where number two
would be the most interesting I suppose. Running old software on old
hardware has already been done - while running new software on it is
kinda cool!

I assume you have some other system too. (:  So you can cheat and cross
compile or even rip out the harddisk and install it in another host? Or
just do it the hard way with as much as possible done on the low end
system. Whatever you prefer.

Most important is selecting software with low resource requirements.
Starting out creating your own boot floppy using busybox is my best bet.

Then google and look around. Find mailing lists actually dealing with
this. These guys think about not wasting cpu cycles and memory when
creating their distro: http://www.emdebian.org/ . I doubt you'll be able
to use anything straight out of it, but it might be useful anyway.

> Did anone ever try ELKS?

Elks not really a Linux, but if just playing around you could always
give it a try. (:

Good luck and happy hacking!
--
/Martin