[sf-lug] sf-lug Digest, Vol 31, Issue 20

[jim]

(good guess, i'd say: those whose experience is not 
great probably would benefit from pointers to install 
techniques. say, i bet they'd get such pointers if 
they show up at a cabal date: 
http://linuxmafia.com/bale/ shows cabal is meeting 
on June 14 from 4 PM to 11:59. 
http://linuxmafia.com/cabal/ shows the same. 
)



On Sun, 2008-06-08 at 18:04 -0700, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting terry (a10cuba at hotmail.com):
> 
> > I need help instaling linux on an everex pentium mmx 200 laptop I
> > tried suse 7.3 ,10.3 xbuntu errors during install. any one want to
> > take a crack at it? 
> 
> It would help _a great deal_ if you would specify the model of Everex.
> And also give the full text of the errors you saw (but I'm guessing you
> didn't bother to transcribe them, so you'd have to try a second time,
> and this time take contemporaneous notes).
> 
> Also, if it just happens to be either an Everex Expressnote 586, an
> Everex StepNote 2053T, or an Everex Stepnote XT5000T -- or a model
> _similar_ to one of those -- then you're in luck and should see:
> http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/other.html
> 
> See also (overlapping coverage, but from different umbrella sites that
> are worth knowing about):
> 
> http://tuxmobil.org/everex.html
>    Everex Expressnote 586 (aka LEO DESIGNote 3500 Series)
>    Everex StepNote SA2053T
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/LaptopTestingTeam/Everex
>    Everex StepNote XT5000T
>    Everex StepNote SA2053T
> 
> Finally, I think you're going to have to take into consideration the
> fact that you're attempting to cram modern Linux distros -- which tend,
> these days, to require that minimum 256MB RAM or so be present just for
> the installers -- onto a 1997-era machine that, correct me if I'm wrong,
> probably has on the order of 64MB total RAM on it.
> 
> Taking the RAM limitation as given, and assuming it's no _worse_ than
> 64MB total (which could be the case, too):
> 
> Debian or Slackware are, among a small number of others, possibilities
> (barely!), _if_ you take care during installation to not do dumb things
> like install GNOME, or KDE, or XFCE4 -- or probably even Firefox.  In
> general, installing distros onto low-spec hardware is not recommended
> for newcomers to Linux[1], as it requires care in areas that newcomers
> wouldn't even think about (e.g., trimming undesired services, shutting
> off unneeded virtual consoles, etc.).
> 
> Contrary to many subscribers to this mailing list, I specifically do
> _not_ recommend selecting Linux micro-distributions such as Damn Small
> Linux or Puppy Linux as the distros of choice for low-spec machines, as
> such distros' limitations are far too severe.
> 
> (I couldn't fathom for quite a long time why some regulars kept making
> that exact same bad-advice recommendation.  Recently, I've arrived at a
> guess:  They like the micro-distributions because those relieve them of
> the necessity to understand how to install _only_ desired packages from
> a real, full-featured distribution, and to disable unwanted startup
> processes.  Hence, they can achieve apparently good results on low-spec
> machines without having to learn how to do installations _well_.  This
> attraction is understandable, I guess, but it'd be smarter to knuckle
> down and learn, finally, how to configure installations, rather than
> just picking a super-tiny distro because it never occurred to you that
> your job of performing a Linux installation isn't _ever_ done just
> because the distro installer program has terminated -- and _especially_ 
> on a low-spec machine.)
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> sf-lug mailing list
> sf-lug at linuxmafia.com
> http://linuxmafia.com/mailman/listinfo/sf-lug
>