Help with slackware on a REALLY old system

[Weedman]

helllo again,

i have tried installing slackware 10.1 on a really old system. It took me awhile, but i finally got over some problems with cylinder limitations on the hdd and so on.

i managed to get these packages installed (off the top of my head):
- A
- D (i think)
- L
- Most of X but without devel and extra fonts
- some of the XAP series (really only a few aps and fluxbox

after all that, the only thing that wont work is X. After configuring it till the cows come home, it still gives me half the screen with the res being really low.
i can only use the generic driver (at least thats what it tells me) because my old graphics card is unsupported.

hardware list:
- 486-DX4 100mhz (i think it is a DX4)
- 16 mb ram (upgraded to 32 mb in the process of trying to get x working)
- 1 gb hdd
- everything including cd drive woring through a isa controller card
- cd drive
- Cirrus Logic GD5426 (unknown vram, maybe 1 mb)

as said above i dont know the vram size, but i have experimented around with no luck.

does anybody know how to fix this, or should i just abandon trying X?

thanks
weed

[onlinebacon]

I would think on something as old as that, although, it would run X, would be faster not to

[Dapper Dan]

I think X is achievable, but it will be slow, if you can install at least 64 RAM. Anything under that I think is gonna give you fits. Also, if you have a few bucks and a pci or agp slot, you could buy an Nvidia with on board RAM.

[mindblast]

Try something older... I had a pentium at 120 mhz, 32 mb RAM and i used RH 7.2 with Wmaker. Works just fine.

[Dapper Dan]

Try something older... I had a pentium at 120 mhz, 32 mb RAM and i used RH 7.2 with Wmaker. Works just fine.

Good point mindblast. A light window manager rather than a full-fledged Desktop Environment will be a better choice at any rate under such conditions.

[Weedman]

so what are you saying?

are you saying that i should use an older distro? ie slackware 5 or something?

and btw, last time i checked, fluxbox wasnt a desktop environment.

finally, i cant upgrade the pc with anymore ram as it has not enough slots.

[kern]

32MB is a bit low for X too

[onlinebacon]

Damnsmalllinux would quite happily run on that machine until the end of the world.

[Weedman]

i will try dsl, but is there an easy-enough install script i can use?

and what will it be like once i have installed it? does it use grub or lilo?

very btw, i finally got something to happen with that old pc. I didnt configure x and just edited the xorg.conf file by hand. It is currently using (very slowly!) vesa framebuffer with blackbox.

it is very slow. i really like the idea of running dsl on it, cause i am used to dsl now after a play with it.

edit= i am wondering whether it would be worth compiling my own kernel with framebuffer support built in. is that such a good idea? or should i be thankful for the fact i have an x (slow but just working)?

[onlinebacon]

Yeah. Very easy to install, all info can be found on the wiki. I would recommend a frugal install, easier to upgrade. Very fast.