486SX runs "newish" Linux?

It might be that the bios on your motherboard won't support a 1.2GB
drive. I've had a problem similar to this once. I corrected it by trying
a smaller hard drive that was supported by the bios. My machine has an AMD
K5 100mhz processor. The bios supports drives up to 8.4GB. It boots from
a 1GB drive. I also have a 60GB drive in it. My machine has no trouble
using that drive.

If you can find an old 400 or 500 MB drive, try booting from it.

At 09:27 PM 11/18/01 -0700, Alan wrote:
>I have an old 486SX PC that I thought would be good as a basic Linux install
>to allow my kids to surf with. It's specs are below.
>
>RH 7.2 install just gets a little ways in and gives up because there is no
>math co-processor. Slackware 8.0 when clear through the entire installation
>and fails on the first actual boot, printing "LI" of the lilo boot message
>and freezing completely.
>
>Will any of the "standard" distributions work on this PC or should I go
>looking for some distro specialized for low powered systems? Or, perhaps the
>lilo problem has nothing to do with low power?
>
>SPECS:
>"Dell Precision 486/33S", 33 MHz 486SX, 16MB RAM, 1.2GB IDE hard drive
>(master), 24x CD-ROM (slave), sound card, Intel EtherExpress PRO ISA network
>card. Video on the motherboard (I don't remember brand), 3.5" floppy drive,
>serial mouse on com1, keyboard.
>
>Alan