Installing Linux on a rather old computer (Damn Small Linux)

[Submerged]

I am wondering if anyone has any experience of installing this distro for older-than-normal computers.

I have decided to attempt to install Damn Small Linux (DSL) onto a computer that was brought in 1996. The specs of the computer, from what I can gather (as the hard drive refuses to work and show Windows 3.11 or allow any access to the hard drive, even though a transfer of the hard drive to another computer works...) is that:

Hard Drive: 520 MB
Pentuim Processor capable of something like 200MHz (I believe)
Four sticks of RAM, either 8MB or 16MB each (32MB or 64MB)
CD-ROM (Booting DSL here, via bootable floppy)
Floppy Drive


Now, one of the main problems with this computer is that the CMOS battery of the motherboard has decided to die. Not surprising, considering it has not been used for three years. However, another problem is as already mentioned, the Hard Drive cannot be read from the DSL area, or the MS-DOS program either. Both can be asked to look for the hard drive (via fdisk and cfdisk) and will return an error message saying that "Disk cannot be found" or similar. In effort to solve this, I had changed:

The CD-ROM to be Master and Hard drive to Slave on IDE cables,
Reverted it back to original Master and Slave

Changed the power plug/sockets in belief it might be loose connections (in the hdd), then realised that Hard Drive does actually spin and works...

Changed the location of the IDE cable from IDE 1 to IDE 2, which then suddenly changed the BIOS settings to a more accurate settings, as previous it was stating that the year was 1997...and now shows 2003. (The motherboard does not seem to be able to save the BIOS settings at all, due to CMOS battery)

However, all of those, apart from improving the BIOS date and time and also seeing it on BIOS (the hdd), has not enable MS-DOS or DSL to see the hdd at all which therefore means its not installed...I am rather keen *not* to buy anything unless it is really needed to.

Also, this is more of a project computer for myself, as I want to learn and understand different options available to me from the Linux distros.

So....any ideas?

 

[jimihemmy]

First thing, but a new battery for your CMOS.

Well, I don't have any experince with DSL but I have 2 suggestions.

1. If you have a USB flash drive, try installing DSL on that and booting from the USB. Although if it is a 1996 computer, your BIOS may not even have that option.

2. Download Ubuntu (or any other distro that has a 'live' cd. Change BIOS to boot from CD/DVD drive. Run GParted and see if it sees the HDD. If it does, you may have to reformat it and try to install DSL onto it. Ubuntu (or just about any other distro) may be too large from your 520MB HDD.

as a last resort, buy a new HDD...they a very cheap these days.

 

[Submerged]

jimihemmy, thank you for replying.

However, at the meantime, I have dual booted Ubuntu onto my actual desktop that I use most. That has gone rather well, apart from a few mishaps (NTFS config, permissions and terminal). From that, I had gained a lot of experience and information on how to set Linux up, so the aim is now to play around with the Ubuntu distro, before then tackling DSL onto the very old computer.

One of the main problem with the ageing motherboard, is actually locating the CMOS battery due to the technology being rather...dated and also the objects are all rather totally different (as it is larger). Also, I presume with the CMOS battery, it is just a case of yanking it out and connecting the CMOS battery in? Or is there soldering required? Anyway, I will search on Google for the motherboard model and what CMOS battery it needs, as I guess the modern CMOS batteries are either too powerful or won't fit the required space...?

Hm, I guess it's good omen that I've already got the Ubuntu Live CD.... jimihemmy, you are correct in that there isn't an USB port on it...strange how technology advances!