Re: Computer question

[Robert Hart <hartr interweft com au>]

On Sat, 27 Dec 1997, Andrew wrote:

> Hi.  My (much) younger sister has an old Gateway 2000 that she's
> interested in installing Linux on.  Its specs are:
> 
> 486SX-33
> 16 Megs ram
> 120 meg hd
> Diamond SpeedStar 64 1 meg ram
> Mitsumi 8x IDE Hd
> 14" Gateway Monitor
> Reveal 16-bit PnP sound card (I understand this wont work with RH)
> 
> Okay, the question here is whether it is possible to reformat the hd,
> and then install RH4.2 with XFree86 and Emacs and the C++ and Java
> packages and have enough room, and whether it is possible to run XFree86
> at an acceptable speed on this system, and how I should go about
> reformatting my drive and installing Red Hat.  Any help will be greatly
> appreciated.

I have never experimented with a disk this small - but I think you
could well be in trouble. As you have only 16MB RAM you will need to
have at least 16MB swap (32MB would be safer as you want to run X).

If you can grab a larger hard disk (an old 500MB perhaps) then your
system would run what you want it to do. Mind you, it won't be fast!

Robert Hart                             hartr redhat com         
Manager, Support Services
Red Hat Software Inc.