Installing Linux on an older PC.

OK i have an older PC. It is a single core 1.25 GHz processor, I think it has 1 gig of RAM and a 60 gig hard drive. I first tried to load Fedora 16 on it. I first burnt the ISO to a DVD and it started to load the first loading screen and then would stop almost at the end. I restarted the PC and it got stuck at the same spot. I burnt the DVD a few days before so I thought it may have been scratched or something. I went back and burnt the ISO to a CD and the exact same thing happened. After awhile I gave up on Fedora and thought I would give MINT a try. I have never worked with MINT or even seen it in action. I first download the CD edition and it would look like its starting to load it showed a network configuration screen. after that the screen went black and all I could see was the mouse. I tried a few times, checked all my connections and still did not work. I then downloaded the DVD edition and tried that and the exact same thing happened.

Has anyone else had issues like this? any thoughts on what I can do to get a linux distro loaded?

Is this when booting the live environment or when installing?

If the former, try booting the live c|dvd and pressing esc then tab to edit the menu. Remove the word quiet from the command and follow the instructions to boot. It may give a better error message.

additionally, you could try adding nomodeset in the same place; make sure it is before the -- at the end of the line.

You could also try accessing another terminal and see if you can login that way. It might be a x-server issue.

ctrl + alt + f3

I will give this stuff a try over the weekend and come back with updates.

Thanks guys.

WEll I found out the problem. I ran the fedora install and removed quite and it was showing that my RAM is bad. I guess thats why se stopped using that computer in the first place. I guess I have to build a new pc now.

Or, you could try slapping some new RAM sticks in there.
If you do a new build, you would need RAM, anyway... so there's nothing to lose.

Its a really old Compaq that has a case will be hard to change any of the parts inside. The RAM and motherboard are so old I cant upgrade. I thought it had a gig of ram but it only has 128 mb or ram. Hey it does have Windows ME on it. lol

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Originally Posted by mactruck

Hey it does have Windows ME on it. lol

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Could be worse... It could be Vista!:lol:

Seriously, though... there are still a few options. Puppy or antiX look good.
And if you don't mind the idea of a Slackware-based OS, there is Vector.

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Seriously, though... there are still a few options. Puppy or antiX look good.

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I was going to stay out of this thread. But. They keep pulling me back in.

Anyways. Here is a video on a IBM t23 I made with AntiX. The computer specs are 1.2 ghz and I bumped the ram to 1 gig from 256MB. Used 2 512 MB sticks.

Screenr - roktnji: AntiX redux

I have since bumped the kernel up to 3.3.1 also since the video was made. I show in the video how I can get to Windows files if I want to also on the hardrive.

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I ran the fedora install and removed quite and it was showing that my RAM is bad

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Was that a memtest run from grub menu?

Code:

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title                Debian GNU/Linux, kernel memtest86+
root                (hd0,0)
kernel                /boot/memtest86+.bin

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I would at least bump the ram to 512MB if possible with 2 256mB ram sticks. Cheap enough. My IBM A22m with a floppy drive, dvdrom, 1ghz processor,512MB of ram (that I bumped up from 128MB of ram), runs AntiX quite well in fact. Processor is not powerful enough and ram specs too low to make a screenr video with it though, so I could show you.

I know how to make a .avi with ffmpeg via command line, (less cpu and ram intensive than browser and java) though . Trouble is. The file ends up being so durn big for a 5 minute video. It is not worth the effort.