Hints needed! Installing a lightweight Linux on a 380XD

[Tasurinchi]

Title says all, I got today this little big beauty:

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ThinkPad 380XD (2635-8A0)
P 233MMX (512KB) 32MB RAM 3.2GB 12.1 SVGA HPA 24X Win95 (now OS-less)

I've burnt two CDs, one with a Slitaz Distro and another one with the latest D@mn Small Linux 4.4 (DSL)

The Slitaz CD startet but hangs after a while when entpacking the Linux Kernel. I was more lucky with DSL, since it's somehow manage to boot, but it doesn't get the right video drivers and after when it starts the X-Server everything looks "overexposed" and I can barely read anything.

I tried booting with the following: dsl vga=normal

DSL will ask me later the screen resolution (800x600) and color depth, I tried all the options (4 bits, 8 bits, 16 bits and 32 bits) with no luck. Does anybody has gone through this? After some googling I found lots of hints and pages with hints, but none of them for my 380XD so I had no sucess.

Help will be much appreciated!

Cheers

[davidgurvich]

This model is so old that you may need to use a very old distribution of linux. I suggest slackware 8 or similar era of linux or openbsd. If the current version of openbsd(4.9) doesn't work then you might try openbsd 3.

Openbsd should run well without a GUI.

[jayton4]

Max out the RAM and give puppy linux a try.

I have gotten Ubuntu 8.04 to work well on my 390X, but it is a year or two later than the 380XD.

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks guys for the responses! I forgot to add that the RAM was upgraded to 64MB. Still my understanding is that the lightweights Distro I'm trying are specially recommended for such old hardware.

I still have to try Crunchcbag and Puppy Linux. Will keep the thread updated...

[davidgurvich]

You could try an older version of DSL. I'm not sure how far back Puppy goes.

[Neil]

Puppy is my favorite because of it's ability to run completely in RAM, but you don't have enough RAM for that. While Puppy operates fine as a normal install, it's a little difficult to keep it updated. So, any time I have to do a regular install, I would rather have Debian (or a distro built on Debian). For 64MB RAM, I would do a Debian net install without a desktop environment, and then use a light weight window manager such as OpenBox, JWM or IceWM.

[Tasurinchi]

I'm just trying with Slitaz again, CD boots ok but when there is a moment when it get stuck at this line:

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kernel_thread_helper+0x7 0x10

Any hints what this means?

Edit: Results from google suggest that the RAM maybe faulty. But DSL at least starts somehow

[Neil]

Which SliTaz version are you trying to use? According to the SliTaz 3.0 release Notes..."A minimum 192MB of memory is recommended to use the core LiveCD. 80MB is needed for the "slitaz-loram" flavor and 16MB for the "slitaz-loram-cdrom" flavor."

SliTaz System Requirements

[Tasurinchi]

D@arn! I got the 35Mb Loram one, guess will have to download and burn the loram-cdrom version that can boot with 16Mb. Thanks for pointing that...

Now I'm trying Puppy Linux, is still booting, let's wait and see...

[hlaj]

Title says all, I got today this little big beauty:

Code: Select all

ThinkPad 380XD (2635-8A0)
P 233MMX (512KB) 32MB RAM 3.2GB 12.1 SVGA HPA 24X Win95 (now OS-less)

I've burnt two CDs, one with a Slitaz Distro and another one with the latest D@mn Small Linux 4.4 (DSL)

Help will be much appreciated!

Cheers

Hello Tasurinchi!

My main computer is a computer from Toshiba with the same hardware specifications as yours except for more ram. I use parabola GNU/linux, which is an arch linux based distribution, with the linux frame buffer enabled.

https://wiki.parabolagnulinux.org/Main_Page

I'm able to see nearly all graphical and multimedia content in the framebuffer, so I haven't seen the need to run the X-Windows system during normal operations. For example, "links-g" is a capable graphical framebuffer browser, mplayer can use the framebuffer, and programs like fbi, fbdvi, fim or fimgs display PDF/PS/DVI and pictures.

Normal RAM usage for me is roughly 28MB without swapping.

However, if you need the X-Windows system, tinycore

http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/welcome.html

, specifically "multicore" now "coreplus" works flawlessly on this hardware using its lighter
weight xvesa/busybox options. As far as I'm aware, tinycore is the best option for X Windows on this hardware with a modern linux kernel.

FreeBSD and OpenBSD both work, but there is more configuration than with the linux options (in FreeBSD I had to recompile the kernel to get a framebuffer, and OpenBSD doesn't have framebuffer support for x86) and their full xservers make the machine feel much less snappy than either parabola or tinycore. With tinycore, your machine will be almost as responsive as modern hardware. It should be able to fit comfortably into 64Mb of RAM, although you will need to enable a swap file for running larger applications, or many applications at once.

Let me know if you run into any difficulties.

[Tasurinchi]

Thanks Hlaj! I will try it as next option. In the meantime I've managed to somehow run DSL using an older version, but got a kernel error after installing it into the hard drive. Right now I'm running a memtest for the 32GB stick since once the BIOS reported it was defective. I've took it off, cleaned the RAM and the connector and MemTest86+ is running now (2h 40m at the moment of writing this).

[hlaj]

Thanks Hlaj! I will try it as next option. In the meantime I've managed to somehow run DSL using an older version, but got a kernel error after installing it into the hard drive. Right now I'm running a memtest for the 32GB stick since once the BIOS reported it was defective. I've took it off, cleaned the RAM and the connector and MemTest86+ is running now (2h 40m at the moment of writing this).

If I'm not mistaken, DSL uses a 2.4 kernel?
Needless to say there have been many improvements and bug fixes since then!

If you keep getting an error, it might be worthwhile using a distribution with a later kernel.
Especially since you have plenty of harddrive space whereas DSL was designed to be the most
linux that would fit into a 50MB CD or 128MB of RAM.

[Tasurinchi]

If I'm not mistaken, DSL uses a 2.4 kernel?

I don't remember now, have to check , thing is that DSL was the only one that worked. Slitaz will hang up as described in my earlier post, a leaner version of Slitaz does not work either. Also Puppy strikes. I've burned Crunchbang and tomorrow will try Tiny Core. Memtest is still running, so far over 5h 15m with 10 passes and no errors found. At least one source less of possible culprit

[davidgurvich]

Actually, the earlier versions of DSL used a 2.2 kernel and even now only use 2.6 kernels by request. There's been a number of changes since then and many are improvements but compatibility for older systems has not been kept except by accident.

My least favorite moments in the last couple of years with Linux have been the X11 changes. Essentially all of my older laptops could no longer run new versions of linux. Some workarounds appeared for some of these problems but definitely not all and the workarounds didn't restore the full functionality that existed.

[Tasurinchi]

First success: I managed to install #Crunchbang Linux into the hard drive using the text install option . It took like an hour to install but it's working, although very sluggish. I will play around a little before trying TinyCore.

[Tasurinchi]

No more updates here, #Crunchbang was too slugish so I went for Win95 (thanks to a friend of mine that kept his CD).

[Soul_Est]

Why not try Tiny Core Linux? http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/welcome.html The hardware requirements are very low too. http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/faq.html#req

[Tasurinchi]

Why not try Tiny Core Linux?

Well, I had downloaded it but since DSL and #Crunchbang were so slow I decided to go the safer way. Maybe I'll try it later...

[gdrunk]

I imagine you may have this issue sorted by now, but if not have you considered FreeBSD coupled with a light Window Manager? I run it on a 600 233-MMX and the same graphics hardware, albiet with more RAM but I believe FreeBSD lists the absolute minimum it requires as 24MB. I also use openbox as my WM and while it isn't lightning fast it's quick enough to be usable.

[Tasurinchi]

Unfortunately I wasn't lucky/patient enough so I ended installing Win95b

[gdrunk]

Well Windows 95 is certainly one way to resolve it!

[Tasurinchi]

"Almost" everything resolved http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=103140