Linux on old laptop

[Gabriel M. Beddingfield]

Billy Tallis wrote:

> I have an old Toshiba Satellite Pro 445CDX laptop with 16MB of ram, a
> Pentium MMX 133 Mhz processor, and a 1.4GB hard drive.
> First, is it feasible to run linux on this machine?
[...]
> Second, how much in the way of FC can I use? I cannot use anaconda,
[...]
> It seems to be an uphill battle, as knoppix is hard to get working and
> doesn't seem to realize that the screen is only 800x600.

Four suggestions:

1. Your laptop is a prime candidate for a RULE installation 
(http://www.rule-project.org).  They have an installer that will install
RH9 (with X) onto your laptop.  FC2 support is in the works.  They have a
user group to help with installation.

2. DamnSmallLinux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) is like Knoppix, but only
50MB.  It can be installed to your hard drive, but serious upgrading is
difficult.

3. To get knoppix to work 800x600, type the following at boot-up:

boot: knoppix screen=800x600

At the boot: prompt, you can hit F2 and/or F3 to get more options.

4. If you can afford to upgrade your memory... by all means do it.  I was
running FC2 on a Celeron 800MHz with 128MB and it was pretty sluggish. 
When I upgraded to 256MB it runs quite nicely.  Feels like I upgraded the
processor.

-- 
Gabriel M. Beddingfield