Installing on a Salvaged box from the dark ages...

scobie

I've managed to salvage a computer from my father, it's a P75 with 40mb ram and a 540mb + a 640mb HD in it.

I've thought about to use it as a router thing or similar.

I know that there's alot of one-disc dists. out there that would work fine, but since I'm using Gentoo as "my" dist. I'd really like to do it on this one too, but before I even start trying to do something with it, I must ask (since the obvious lack of HD space and general lack of power) which way I should make it happen.

I also have a XP 1400+ which I can do the compiling in, but what should I discard etc.

Sorry about the lack of coherency, but I'm a teeny bit on the tired side...

Scobie

psp · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 2:30 pm Post subject:

Hmmm.... Never tried this, but the RAM looks on the small side. I remember reading somewhere that Gentoo likes a minimum of 64 MB (For the LiveCD). You could try network boot the box and install precompiled packages on the P75 (remember to change the CFLAGS options in your make.conf). Perhaps compiling GRP-style packages might help.

Soz - I'll also a bit tired...

scobie · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 2:56 pm Post subject:

What do I need for the "skeleton", just the basic-of-basic to keep it running?

pjp · Administrator Joined: 16 Apr 2002 Posts: 20067

There are several threads on dealing with older hardware, and in particular, low RAM. Could be hard to find, but would be worth the effort. The/a "process" is described well.

Moved from Other Things Gentoo.
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

timbo · Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2003 9:16 pm Post subject:

I've successfully installed Gentoo 1.2 onto an old Cyrix P150, 32meg RAM, 1.2G HDD (/boot, /usr and swap) and a failing 1G (/var) computer.

Bare bones with no X etc but it is running apache cause I wanted a jukebox and found netjuke works great for me. I'd like to combine the two hdd's onto one so I can have only two in the machine as it's got a third that has all the music on.

Regards
Tim