Short story:
Stack installed ok on this very old machine. It only has a CD drive, so I put the full contents of the install DVD onto an existing partition on the hard drive, then used the mini ISO to boot from CD and directed it to take the packaged from the existing partition.
Singe core, old processor, was best to boot the huge kernel with the noefi flag.
Details
Computer is OLD — CD drive but not a DVD drive (laptop, so not easy to swap), and no USB boot option in the BIOS settings. So I can either network install after net boot, or I can boot off a CD (or in fact floppy(!)), then install from network, if the distro does not fit on a single CD.
First, I got the appropriate iso file:
http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackboot/mini/15.0/ http://www.slackware.com/~alien/slackboot/mini/15.0/slackware_i586-15.0-mini-install.iso wget https://slackware.nl/slackware/slackware-current-iso/slackware-current-mini-install.iso
(wget is good here)
Then seeing as I was using Windows, I burned it using Cygwin:
$ wodim -v speed=4 dev=E: -data ./slackware_i586-15.0-mini-install.iso
Installing on a Compaq E500. Have to boot from CD — too old for USB option.
Has FreeDOS on /dev/sda1, which I want to keep (it’s actually IDE, so it would have used to have been called /dev/hda1).
Boot from the CD and type huge.s then hit enter to boot huge.s kernel.
First I’ve deleted all partitions except the FreeDOS one (sda1), then put in swap (sda2) and / (sda3) and /home (/sda4).
Done using cfdisk
I cannot put the swap exactly at the front of the disk, but so be it.
Very simple.
Then save and exit and run setup.
addswap — finds it and formats it; no problems
then format / to ext4 — no problem there either
Mouting the FreeDOS install at boot time as /freedos — no worries.
chose to install from HTTP/FTP server, and put in:
https://mirror.aarnet.edu.au (or use its IP address)
I used the servers IP address (ie http://202.158.214.106)
for the server and
/pub/slackware/slackware-15.0/slackware
for the folder — note — 32 bit!
Then it downloaded some stuff and i decided to not install KDE, emacs and the y set (games). We’ll see if the old machine can handle XFCE, but I might end up using something simpler, like Openbox.
And we wait … [note — if you use the -current iso (instead of 15.0) (or some other version) make sure to point the installer at the correct set of files] … and a bunch of crucial packages do not install. I suspect the installer has not made enough space to download them, because an out of space error message flashes up. Smaller packages install, so it may relate to some scratch space size.
I tried putting the files on a USB or on the FreeDOS partition — machine cannot boot from USB, but can mount a file system, so I downloaded the full Slackware ISO for the installation DVD, then unpacked the ISO onto a USB stick (or onto the FreeDOS partition). But now I get a kernel panic and cannot even boot the install disk. SliTaZ boots, so I have not idea why the change.
Tried resetting the BIOS, tried whatever else I can think of, tried some kernel parameters — nothing. Reburned the CD — nothing. It is odd that it booted OK once but not a second time…
Eventually I worked out I needed to pass noefi as a boot parameter. Then the installation went fine, after I mounted the partitions with the DVD contents on them. I did not install KDE packages, or games (machine only has 350 MB RAM).
As long as I use lightweight packages, Slackware is fine on this older hardware. It’s not so much about the OS itself as about what packages you choose to run.
Slack
DSPACE 