[ubuntu-in] Linux on Pentium II, 128MB RAM and USB1

[Narendra Diwate]

I had the opportunity of trying to use a computer with the above specks: a
Pentium II or Celeron with 128MB RAM and USB 1 on a VIA motherboard. It had
XP installed on it.
Now as i was carrying my Live USB's i wanted to try them on it and see how
it would run and how badly would a slow USB port in USB 1 affect a Live USB
boot.
I had puppy, slitaz, austrumi, antiX on USB with me. AntiX CD was also
available.

Puppy and Austrumi worked well while Slitaz and AntiX failed to boot.
This was surprising as I was expecting Austrumi and AntiX to not boot:
Austrumi because of its display, i thought might need more than 128MB RAM
and AntiX was a i686 version so was expected. i didnt have the i486 version
which might have worked. Slitaz should have booted but didnt.

Those that did not boot indicated something like "failed to find file
system" probably referring to the compressed file system. My guess is that
after the kernel booted ant init was up, it needs to find the compressed
file system on the attached storage devices like CD, USB or HDD and as the
USB was too slow failed to detect in a reasonable amount of time.

Now i know the slow USB 1 is partly to blame for the non booting, but i am
wondering now if the presence of a swap partition would have helped boot.
Your opinions and experiences if any on booting with USB on a USB 1 port.

Also any suggestions on a distro for dual booting on this machine - my
choice is AntiX i486. Lubuntu will run on 128MB but needs 196 to install,
Linux Mint LXDE needs 196MB to run,

-- 
Regards

Narendra Diwate
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