[SWLUG] Installing RH via NFS

[Telsa Gwynne]

On Thu, May 22, 2003 at 08:53:36AM +0100 or thereabouts, Gareth James Powell wrote:

[can you set your line lengths to around 70 characters rather than
around 90? Otherwise there's a lot of reformatting to do just to 
quote things. 70 gives ample space for a layer of two of quoting.
Thanks! ]

> Hi,
>   Thanks for looking around for me, I just chose RH5.0 as I found 
> someone  who did an install floppy set for this version of Linux 

Ah.

> The sad news is that I think I may have blown up one of the 
> computers parports; plip no longer works at all! Stupid of me 

Oh dear.

> In the meantime I have ordered a 40 pin to 44 pin connector [...]
>  If this hdd link works (I think the Tosh hdd is compatible?) 
> maybe I should take the advice to install a later OS as suggested 
> (Debian) Is there a reson to prefer Debs on such a crufy old 
> laptop say Vs. another newer Linux? 

This is the Libretto 50 CT, yes? So it will have something
like 32Mb of RAM? Generally, the more recent the version of
a distro, the fancier the installer has become and the more
memory the machine needs to run it. 

The recent versions of RH will not like installing with 32Mb
and will take hours and hours. You can mess around to put
RH on anyway, but it tends to involve some effort and pruning
things down. However, I do think something more recent than
5.0 would be the one to use. People have certainly got 7.2 
onto Librettos. 

If you can't get 7.2 or something on, then I wouldn't go
for a geriatric RH. Debian, by contrast, is quite happy to 
install with that sort of RAM amount and will let you start 
off with a minimal system and add bits and pieces to it. 

Promised references: 

  *  Ever-wonderful Linux on Laptops site. Two pages on your
machine, first of which has many many comments from readers
after it. Many more on other Toshiba laptops. 

http://www.linux-laptop.net/toshiba.html
http://anarchysoftware.com/system/libretto/redhat6.html
http://klee.cs.depaul.edu/ajeffrey/libretto.html

  * There were a number of threads about installing or running
Linux on small machines on the techtalk at linuxchix mailing
list last year which were very informative. Librettos,
including your exact machine, came up quite a bit. Go to 

http://mailman.linuxchix.org/pipermail/techtalk/2002-July/thread.html

and look for the threads entitled:
  - "Do I send bug reports? If so, where?"
    (first one describes how someone put RH 7.3 onto a Libretto  50CT)
  - "Do I even think about upgrading it?"
    (this is a Libretto 20CTA question which spawns a huge and
    informative discussion about low-memory boxes and distributions)

  * sysgen is a tool for RH 7.2 and small machines. You put a
minimal RH 7.2 onto a hard disc. You stick the disc into a
rather better Linux box than the laptop. You run 'sysgen'.
And then you put the result back into the laptop. Apparently.
I have never tried. 

ftp://ftp.linux.org.uk/pub/linux/alan/Software/Install/sysgen-0.01.tar.gz

You will see that a lot of the linuxchix discussion involves
some monkeying about. If you don't care for the monkeying 
about, then that's when to consider Debian. The install is
not so pretty, but it works. (Well. I have broken the 
Debian install. But that's par for the course.) There is
also another post in the same techtalk archive which is a
fairly complete list of things to know/try/do on small boxes
and which includes all manner of useful small apps. Given
the Debian belief of "if it's released, package it", I am
sure that apt-get will find them all. (rpms are not so good
in this respect.) 

Telsa