The 02.12.29 at 20:09, Mike wrote:
Don't worry, I'm not really using that machine. I only wanted to prove to myself that linux could be installed on it, and I have even managed to compile the kernel O:-)
How long did that take you?
Well, I had to cheat O:-) I started the compile, and at some point, when I came back 12 hours later, it had segfaulted (on make -C drivers). The funny thing was that most programs segfaulted after that, even halt, so I had to power off. I tried again, and it halted with "parse error at null character" on file "include/linux/sched.h:502". So I took the hard disk to another PC (a pentium 120) and finished the compile there (make clean dep bzImage modules and make modules_install); then I went back to the 386, and did there a "make install" which took about 5 hours. After reboot, the compressed kernel was about 200 Kb smaller. I still have to check the amount of available memory, but it will be larger.
I managed to put Slack with the 1.59 kernel on a 385 and it took weeks to recomplie the kernel. I killed it after 3 weeks and more RAM in it to give it 8 meg and then it runs ok. I think the kernels after 2 require 4 meg of RAM, and even more for the installers.
As I said, I cheated ;-) Had to, that machine has only 5 megs ram. Now that the kernel is smaller, perhaps I could try again without cheating.
The only real use will be to retrieve my old backups (pctools), and move them over to CDs. Then, it will remain at part of my museum... er, junk pile ;-)
I also have a 286 running minux in my collection.
I had to study the Tanenboum book (Operating Systems), translated to spanish, that included the minix source, printed. But I could never get the floppies: the book was printed in Mexico, and I live in Spain: I couldn't get them (I still remember the face of the bokkseller when I asked!), so I never could try minix. Pity...
Don't know why Linux doesn't recognise your CDROM, I've used a variety of CDROMs ranging from old 8x drives to modern 56x units without any problems. Enybody else any suggestions?
Old CDroms didn't follow standards the NEC 250 was OK but the 260 was not. I had a 260. I had to copy the files to a DOS partition and load linux from there.
Yes, that is what I think. In fact, linux reports it as an ide-tape device. But the install from the dos partition did not work either, I had to cheat there as well, using the other PC. Now that linux is installed, I can install packages from the dos partition, it recognises the same directory that it rejected during the install. -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson