Linux on a 100 year old computer

[welsh_spud]

Hi everyone,

Ive had a bit of experience with linux (Debian, Mandrake etc), but recently, I recieved from a friend, an old computer. Now this isnt just a bit slow in the CPU department, it slow in every department.

On to the plan. My plan is, to put a gui (flux box, somethings light) on the box, maybe one or two apps like dillo, and FLWriter. Basically, something to compete with Windows 3.1 (which is installed on it at the moment).

Specs:

-60mb hard disk
-Im afraid I dont know how much RAM it has (any ideas on how to find out with windows 3.1)
-A Cyrix 486 processor

Problems
-It has no way to connect to the internet, so no 10/100 port, no dialup
-It only has a floppy drive, so no CD, USB
-It has no speaker ports, so I could scrap any sound system on the computer to save a bit of hard disk space.

So any ideas on how to go about my plan? I had the idea of partitioning the disk into one 50mb partition, and one 10mb partition. I would copy DamnSmall linux into the 50mb partition, then boot from there. The problem with this is I dont know how to get DSL (which is 50mb) onto 1.44mb floppy disks.

Any ideas are welcome, and I will happily provide any info that I can get hold of!

Thanks in advance

Ben

[LBmtb]

I'm just a newbie so I wont have too many answers. Just wanna wish you good luck. Let us know how it goes.

Sure others will have some good advice though.

[welsh_spud]

Thanks for the encouragement, im really looking forward to getting this started!

[jaboua]

Is it possible to move the hd into some other comp, install there, and move it back?

[welsh_spud]

I thought of that, but the hard disk seems to interface with some very strange card? If you want I can take a photo.

[LBmtb]

Did IDE even exist back then?

[welsh_spud]

Dont think so!



Sorry about the blur, im not the best photographer.

It looks kind of like the interface between the motherboard and sound cards...if I think im talking about the right thing

[budman7]

Check out this link for floppy based distros
http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=links#floppy

Hope you can get this thing working.

If you need more ram, I have some old simm chips.
Just pm me and we can set something up.

[welsh_spud]

Good news everyone, I have found an external CD drive in my basement. Only, there doesnt seem to be a way to connect the device to the PC.

The external CD drive has a COM port, like the ones used for printers, and so does the laptop, so its a plus there. Does anyone know how to connect the two, or buy a cable?

EDIT **oh yeah, and I found a little tutorial on how to install DamnSmall linux from floppy, but cant make any sense of it

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/install_from_floppy.html

EDIT ** Yet another advance. After looking at the memory on the PC, I noticed that floppy drive was attached to a seperate interface, infact, it was compatable with the ribbon cable in my spare desktop. So I have a hard disk laying ontop of the machine, with one problem, it doesnt have any power. I think maybe if I could atach the power cables to the hard disk, and then to the desktop it was in originally inside, it could get power and be attached to the old PC.....anyone follow?

Are there many risks in doing this? Im not to fussed about data loss, but more the danger of having shrapnel flying in my eyes from an overloaded motherboard

[budman7]

I read a little bit of that tutorial for installling DSL from a floppy PITA
what it says to do is use a program like ISOBUSTER to open the iso and put all of the prgrams on floppies, and put them on the hd.

Question, does that old pc have pci slots?
If it does, you can get a ide add-on card that goes into the pci slot.
I don't think they made ide add-on cards for ISA slots, but who knows.
They aso make USB add-on cards that go into the pci slot.