Smallest of the OS's

[Cyrus Dragonas]

Thats right. I want the smallest possible OS's you can find.

I recently came into possession of a Satellite T2135CS, circa OUT OF DATE. This thing has a whole whopping 8MB of RAM, and about 500MB of HD space. It runs 75 MHz right now. It doesn't have a cdrom, only a floppy and PCMIA. It's running Windows 95 right now, and I badly want to change that.

Hell, I'd be willing to run Ipod (Podzilla) Linux on it if it were possible...

Cyrus

 

[SNGX1275]

I have no expierence with this, but it appears it would be good for your situation: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

 

[Cyrus Dragonas]

Nice! Good contribution to the thread, but it doesn't go low enough on the requirements for my laptop. I don't even have a cdrom, OR a usb port. I'm sure there is a way to convert the serial port on it to work with one, but I don't know if I'm willing to go that far.

DSL does look nice though. Thanks! Still looking to meet these req's though:

76MHz processor speed
500mb hardrive
8 mb ram

Frankly, I find it hard to believe it runs 95 so well; go figure.

Cyrus

 

[SNGX1275]

Hmm, missed it by 8 megs of RAM I guess. I got excited when I saw you processor and apparently didn't pay attention to the rest

Not sure what you can run, but this post will bump it up again and maybe the guys that only check TS during the week will see and have an idea.

 

[Cyrus Dragonas]

Well, I would consider it, because I've ran stuff way below requirements before,(not well, but I'm willing to compromise). I also don't REALLY have a way to get it on there, because it doesn't have anything useful besides a serial and floppy,,,

If someone can find a way I can shuttle it onto the laptop via floppy, such as taking the program over in bits and recompiling it on the laptop, I'm all for that.

Cyrus

 

[Nodsu]

With so little RAM, I would recommend Minix 2 or 3 or just plain DOS instead of a real OS.
You could probably hack some version of Linux or BSD on it, but it would be horribly crippled (just like MInix and DOS are ).

 

[Ph30nIX]

All I can say is

Why Bother.

 

[Nodsu]

Yes, we should all get the latest Dell laptops with Vista on them and play Solitaire..

I think the point is something like:
- don't throw away something that you can still use
- learn something in the process
- have fun

You know.. Just like ricers glue stupidest pieces of plastic on their cars or like gamers think that they can score more kills when there's some 1337 sticker on the machine or like people hoard pornography on their computer (in case the internet ceases to exist tomorrow) or like pretty much anything else you do when you are not catering for your basic needs of survival.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

I'd say V2_OS is quite small.

 

[Cyrus Dragonas]

Yeah, nodSU is right; no point in throwing away something still salvageable. I've made so many computers out of junk parts its ridiculous. I can't believe the stuff people just throw away. I'll check on those two V2_OS and Minix. The only real use I want or need out of it would be a pdf reader (high end expectation), but only expect to get text, some lousy paint stuff, and thats about it.

I will post back with results. Also, if anyone can think of a way to transfer data to it, please, tell me. I have an un-operational floppy drive, that I'm going to take apart and try to fix. It still doesn't fix the lack of transfers; I wish I knew a way to break a file in pieces and recompile it over on that end.

Cyrus

Cyrus

 

[Boogityboo04]

I think once you got the basic runlevel on to it you could transfer the rest over the serial port, but it would be mind numbingly slow.

 

[Mictlantecuhtli]

The only real use I want or need out of it would be a pdf reader (high end expectation), but only expect to get text, some lousy paint stuff, and thats about it.

Windows 3.1?

 

[Nodsu]

PDF? Would you mind if it took 15 minutes or more to open one?
It depends on the content of course. Plain text would be small and easy to render.

 

[GameJunkie72792]

I run Floppix on a system of similar specs but its command line only no GUI. But it was a simple install. If anyone finds an answer i would be happy to know. I would prefer a GUI.

 

[Cyrus Dragonas]

Attempting to try DSL, but I have yet to find a way to transfer it to it. I think I'll have to resort to a good ol' serial port,

Cyrus

 

[Boogityboo04]

DSL can be put on floppies if you could fix your drive... If you've never tried to program a serial port to do something you will quickly find that it is damn near impossible.