Linux distro

i have an old laptop im would like to put linux on. it curretnly has dos6.22 and windows 3.1.
it a 120 MB hard drive, 25 MHz processor, and 4 MB of RAM. so i will need a very small and simple os. any suggestions?

I really likeBSD for smaller/older systems...
There is even another distro branched from FreeBSD called PicoBSD...

try this link http://www.linux.org/dist/list.html it has alot of linux distros and a bunch of them are even very small. it gives a small overview of the distros and their features too.

PeacE
-BoB

I go to http://www.linuxiso.org/ for different linux Distros and for Freebsd :D

I don't know if you can get a modern kernel to run with so little ram.
Also, you may have trouble with installing, even if the kernel loads ok.
Maybe an older distribution, bare bones, no GUI. The smallest system
I've installed is Redhat 6.0 on a 486-66 with 32 megs and a 450 meg
hard drive, and there's very little hard drive space left over.
:cool:

If you go to my link. you can search for the "minimalist" distros they could help since they would be so small.

PeacE
-BoB

What about those distros that boot on a floppy? I think Trinux was the name of one. I'm sure that would run well on a system that small.

Some others, um, lol, 'Floppix' and TIny Linux found (with more) here:

http://xunil.hypermart.net/topic_linuxdist.html

I'm not sure what the sys reqs are, but if they run on a floppy, I doubt they will be eating as much memory as Win 3.11 ;)

Um, sorry I'm not much more help than that right now, um, I'm googling right now, I will report back if I find something great worth making another post! :D

Dave

i correct myself... you can not run PicoBSD on less than 8mb of ram...
http://people.freebsd.org/~picobsd/picobsd.html

Yea like some of the members above have said single floppy disk bootable linux's distros maybe of some use to you, theres a directory on google that has some usful links in it

http://directory.google.com/Top/Comp...y_Sized/?tc=1/

You didnt say whether it had a CD drive, I assume it doesnt although if it does then an option may be a bootable CD distro such a "knopix" or "warlinux" (pretty cool has some good progies for war driving)

The only problem with the CD ones is that I think (dont quote me) that if you want to install a program you have to write a new CD each time, not excellent but not a major problem

I loved Knoppix, get it here

www.linuxiso.com

along with other bootable and normal distros

i2c

As someone has mentioned a bit earlier in this threat, I suggest you to look at linux.org's list of Linux OS's. There are quite a few Linux's out there that boot from floppies and CD's as well.
If you can find the site, you can always go for MeneutOS (Not sure if that's spelled correctly) which can be found at http://www.****microsoft.com on the left side of the page.