486SX runs "newish" Linux?

[Rusty Carruth]

> 
> On Sunday 18 November 2001 08:27 pm, Alan Dayley 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.

"LI" means that the disk geometry changed.  (Or something like that -
look it up in the lilo howto - I know that 'li' means something
important like that.  Did you get a warning about more thatn
1024 cyls when running lilo?  If so, then that would explain it -
the image may be up higher than 1024...

> > 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?

> The "LI" problem should have nothing to do with low power. I got the same 

Like I say, it has nothing to do with underpowered.  Its a LILO
error message (for strange values of 'error message' ;-)

> to the other location (as opposed to where ever I chose before and got "LI").

The other thing is that if you made a /boot partition near the start,
you can avoid at least one lilo problem folks often have.

> > SPECS:
> > "Dell Precision 486/33S", 33 MHz 486SX, 16MB RAM, 1.2GB IDE hard drive

Newer versions of Mandrake will NOT install with less than 32 meg of
ram.  However, my firewall box (the one I'm currently typing on ;-)
has version 7.0.2 of mandrake and works just fine.  I *think* it
also has 16 meg of ram (and I know I've used a 16meg firewall
before).

I assume similar problems exist for other distros.

There are some special 486-based firewall distros out there,
or use an older <choose a distro> and upgrade all the security
things...

(Me, I finally punted and bought a cheap ($20) pentium system
to use as my firewall - one of these days it will be up
and running mandrake 8.1!  Real Soon Now ;-)

rc