On Fri, Apr 27, 2001, Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier wrote: > On Fri, 27 Apr 2001, Indraneel Majumdar wrote: > > > Hello, > > > > Can anyone please tell me whether it is possible to install Debian on a > > 386SX with 3MB RAM. I tried to install using the potato floppies but it > > starts to load the compressed ramdisk from the root floppy and then > > simply hangs. No furthur output. The floppies are OK and work fine on > > other systems with more RAM. > > I believe the stated minimum for installation is 8MB. > It's probably not going to be possible to perform an > installation with only 3MB. > > Take care, > > Zonker > --
Hi, When I did a recent install of Potato on my oldest PC (Compaq 386s/20, finally freed from MS subordination :) ), the initial install help screen said that minimum specs for RAM with potato were now 12Mb, IIRC, although they used to be lower. I played around with the install, my computer faithfully and mightily struggled, and it finally managed to install a complete Linux environment (minus X but with development stuff) in 8Mb. Indraneel, you might want to see if you can cheaply put old FPM or EDO memory in the system to expand it a little (it'll probably go above 3Mb) and you can find modules for generally $5 per 4Mb. Hope this helps and take care, Daniel -- Daniel A. Freedman Laboratory for Atomic and Solid State Physics Department of Physics Cornell University
