Problems installing Ubuntu server on an old computer

[South Walney Information Management]

Clive Menzies wrote:
> You haven't given any hardware specs but generally in this situation
> we've used ubuntu and users are very happy.  However, if the machine
> runs at less than 500MHz and is short on memory, you may want to
> consider Beatrix, an Ubuntu derivative which runs well on older kit:
> http://www.watsky.net/

I liked the look of Beatrix as a small-box solution, but it didn't work
any better than anything else on my client's machine (although it did
give up more politely than anything else I tried.  Beatrix should have
coped with the 64K RAM and 166 MHz Pentium-MMX, but was, she said,
unable to locate the Beatrix filesystem on /dev/hdc (or anywhere else).

The problem seems to be that once the CD has booted it can no longer see
itself.

Anyway, I have managed to put W*nd*ws XP on it and it works, so my
client can at least use that until I think of something else.

Thanks to everybody who offered suggestions.

Rosie