Old Hardware and Linux

[technobard]

I was wondering if anyone had any success with the latest (more or less) Linux kernel on older hardware. Specifically, I have a Dell XPS P(entium) 133c with 80 MB RAM. I tried Red Hat 7.2 a month or so ago and it hung during the install. I don't think it liked the integrated graphics card. Any good distros out there that support this kind of stuff?

Thanks.

[bdl]

My personal opinion is that you should be able to run any kernel version on that machine, and it may be that the RH install failed for some other reason. I'd suggest (if it's easily attainable) to try installing some other distro like Slackware or Debian, ones that normally use a very basic install, don't use X or other means to do the installation, these distros also have a better track record with working on older hardware. I've got an old P200 with built-in audio and video that I've run 2.2 and 2.4 on with no problems.


Afterthought - if you should decide to try installing Redhat again, we might be able to help troubleshoot the process if you can provide some details and possibly errors you're getting.

[technobard]

Thanks, bdl. The odd thing is there are no errors. It just hangs during the install. I believe it goes off to run anaconda(?) or something and just never comes back. I ran 2.2 on the machine once upon a time (Caldera's OpenLinux) without any problem. I needed the later stuff and decided to try Red Hat. The same Red Hat CDs install fine on my AMD 500 MHz box.

I thought about trying another distro, but I figured I'd check and see if anyone else had a problem before putting in the effort.