Recently I downloaded the 150 MB netinst CD image of Debian Lenny Beta2 from this page.
Initially I installed it on my COMPAQ Presario 2500 series Laptop. After installing the base system I added xorg, IceWM and slim since I wanted very lightweight system. I found really a very light Debian.
Inspired by the lightness I decided to try it on my old desktop Pentium MMX 200 Mhz 32 MB RAM.
The installer went into Low Memory mode and loaded minimum installer components and asked to add additional components I wanted. I did not add anything. This resulted into failure of Network Card Detection. I bypassed the Network Configuration. The installer contacts NTP server after Network configuration. When it could not contact NTP server it simply asked whether hardware clock was set to UTC or not and proceeded to install the base system. The installer automatically selected the 486 Kernel image. At select and install software stage (after Base Install) I unchecked every thing and the base installation was finished.
After booting I configured the network by editing /etc/network/interfaces file and started the network. I updated and upgraded the system through apt-get (including Kernel 2.6.24 to 2.6.25) and could reboot into the new Kernel.
I added xorg and icewm and edited xorg.conf to configure the serial mouse, added Modeline, PreferredMode in Monitor Section, Default depth, depth and Mode to use in screen section. I made .xnitrc to boot into IceWM and used startx to get into IceWM.
The result on IceWM:
$ free -m
Total used free
Mem: 28 26 2
-/+ buffers/cache11 17
Swap 243 1 243
$ ps aux | wc -l
31
I have reduced the tty terminal processes by commenting getty lines in /etc/inittab file.
I added Kazehakase web browser. It gives performance similar to Firefox 1.5 on old DSL.
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5 comments:
I am wondering if you could help me with a linux problem I am having. I have been fooling around for months with an IBM i1200 Thinkpad with 32 MB fixed RAM. I have gotten a few distros (Puppy, DSL, Feather) running on it, but what I intend to do with this computer is manage a library collection using Alexandria, a Ruby-Gnome package. I haven't been able to get it running in any of the distros.
I read your posts on custom installing Debian on a machine with 32 MB RAM, and am trying it. The problem with this machine is that the only way I have to connect it to the network is through a bc4306 wifi pcmcia card and ndiswrapper.
So I have installed minimal etch (no x) and can't figure out what to do next. In your examples, you were able to configure the network quickly after rebooting, update and add any packages you need. I have a command prompt but can't figure out how to get my network configured so I can add fluxbox or ice.
The lighter distros come with ndiswrapper. I can add my driver from a usbstick and have been able to get the network up in both Puppy and DSL. Never seemed to work in Feather.
Anyway, I don't really care which distro I end up with as long as I can use apt-get or synaptic to add Alexandria and all its dependencies when I have it up and running.
I know this is your blog, not a forum, but since you have experience with old hardware and very light installs, I hoped you could give me some tips.
One idea I had was to download some packages onto a cd and add that cd to my /etc/apt/sources.list
Does debian have any prebuilt cd images that have packages and all the dependencies already on it?
Would it work if I put ndiswrapper-common and ndiswrapper-utils on a cd
could I get wlan0 configured in the command line so that I could then use apt-get to add a gui and the other stuff I need?
md
You have two options:
1. Install DSL (Frugal install recommended) get the network running (you know how), enable apt and add Debian repositories (it is possible on DSL) and install alexandria through apt-get install.
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/wiki/index.php/Enabling_Apt
2. Read the WifiDocsDriverNdiswrapper on Ubuntu Community Docs and learn how to get the network running on Ubuntu (Same more or less applies for Debian)
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WifiDocs/Driver/Ndiswrapper
If you can make the network up on Debian install alexandria through apt-get install.
Thanks very much. I didn't realize I could use apt with DSL. That's probably what I will try first.
Hi. Its' me again. I hope you don't mind me contacting you through your blog.
I have tried searching the forums and there are just too many conflicting sets of instructions. I'm hoping you know something about wireless with the notorious bcm43xx.
First, I found a pcbus ethernet card to borrow and so I was able to get etch installed on my thinkpad after all. I tried ndiswrapper for a couple of days to no avail. iwconfig wlan0 gave me an error about needing to use b43 instead. I installed that.
My card lights up. ifconfig wlan0 scan sees networks. Using iwconfig wlan0 I input the information about the network (this I have done sucessfully on puppy and other distros with the same card). Looks like it should work, but when I open a browser and type an address, it just hangs there and never connects.
Sorry to trouble you.
No troube at all. Linux is about helping others.
I hope this is right tutorial for you.
DebianTutorials
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