Smaller version of Linux than Xubuntu required

[Alfred]

Hi Donald &/or Mila Trombley wrote::

In the last month I set up Damn Small Linux 3.2 on an old Compaq
Deskpro, 350 Mhz Computer with 256 MB of Ram. Xbuntu, Ubuntu, and
Edbuntu would not load at all!

Compaq likes Cable Select on hard Drives instead of Master Slave!

The Instructions that come with Damn Small Linux are very Vague. When
you sign on the DSL Forum, do it at the beginning of a month, or you
will not be able to post messages.

Take a Small hard Drive, of around 3.5 to 6 gigs. Make a partition of
about 140 Megabytes Fat 32 as the first Partition HDA1. Then make a
second Partition of about 70 Megabytes as EXT 2 or EXT 3 HDA2. Then use
the rest of the Hard drive as the Third Partition Formatted as EXT2 or
EXT3 as the HDA3 Partition. Install the CD as Frugal onto HDA2. Then go
into the system menu, and make HDA1 into the Knoppix Swap File.

Then use these Commands, in the terminal mode:

sudo -s
mkswap /dev/hda1
swapon /dev/hda1

Get out of Terminal mode using exit, exit.

Then setup your Modem (I used an External Modem) In System - Net Setup
Dial-up ppp. Follow the Prompts and it is quite easy to set up.

Go to the little box in the Right Hand lower corner, click on fd0, click
on cdrom. It should say hda2, make sure it is mounted, by clicking the
lower Button it should turn green, and say Mounted. Then Click on hda3,
and click on the lower button if it is red, and it should say Mounted
and turn green.

Then get back into Terminal with these Commands:

cd /mnt/hda3
mkdir backup
mkdir mydsl
cd /mnt/hda3/mydsl
mkdir optional
mkdir modules
mkdir apps
cd /mnt/hda3
mkdir home
mkdir opt
exit

Click on System, net setup ppp

The Modem Dial box comes up write the name you called the connection
into the box, then click on Dial!

I just used the letter p, to make it simple, because it forgets every
boot you make.

Then when the modem is dialing your IP, and made the connection, you
click on My DSL Browser, the little Gears Icon on the Desk top. Here you
get to load in Extra Programs, and Themes etc. These are stored on the
hda3 partition. If you want a program to be already installed and
available to run at boot up put it in the /mnt/hda3/mydsl directory.
If you want a program to be available at your option, but not installed
put it in /mnt/hda3/mydsl/optional directory. Depending upon how much
Ram you have for the RAM DISK, large programs in optional will use the
ram disk up real fast. Plug-ins for programs go into
the /mnt/hda3/mydsl/modules directory.

You can put about 600 -700 Megs of programs into
the /mnt/hda3/mydsl/optional directory. Then you pick the programs you
want to use, in each session. You rightclick on the desktop, and go into
the Mydsl directory. Programs you put into /mnt/hda3/mydsl should be
ready to run. Programs you put into /mnt/hda3/mydsl/optional need to be
installed first, and then run so you go into rightclick on the desktop
go into mydsl twice, once to install and once to run the program, for
that session. The meter in the top right hand corner will show how much
of resources are being used. 

Ok you want to shutdown, before you do ---

Now you rightclick on the desktop, click on System, then Backup/restore.
Backup hda2, hda3 into /mnt/hda3/backup Click on backup, wait until the
dialog box disappears.

Then Right Click on the Desktop and pick the last item in the menu, and
shutoff. Upon shutdown it makes a backup of all the files, that were in
the Ram Disk, and stores them on HDA3. then it shuts down.

On Bootup it looks for the Mydsl Folder on HDA3 and puts the info onto
the Rightclick menu on the desktop again, so you don't loose everything,
because it is running in ramdisk. Then it restores the back-up so all
your settings you made before are still around.

I've got some other things to do, so the printer will be next time!

Alfred!



On Sun, 2007-29-04 at 09:59 -0700, Donald &/or Mila Trombley wrote:
> I am looking for a smaller version of Linux than Xubuntu 6.1 (edgyy 
> eft), something along the lines like one of the DSL's (DamnSmallLinux),
> to run on my old  Packard Bell Synera P-2,  333 mhz with something like 
> 80 megs of ram on board....seems they don't make expansion
> boards for this model of Computer any more.
> Any ideas? I would like to try d/l'ing it to a 512 memory key, and using 
> it as my flash drive?
> I would like some instructions in how  to set it up.
> Thanks for any help.
> Don.
>