Hi folks.
A couple of weeks ago, shortly after I joined the list, I queried you folks
who are more knowledgeable regarding a partitioning strategy and some other
installation options as it pertained to setting up Red Hat 7.2 (modified
speakup distro taken from speakup ftp site) on a pentium ii 233 mhz w 64 mb
of ram.
This machine was to be composed of a bunch of old parts that I have here at
home along with some other contributions acquired from a friend who has
just recently upgraded.
Anyway, most of the more important parts were coming from my friend Jen,
I.E., cpu, case w 250 or 300 w ps, board, heat sink for chip, one of the
two Hds, and I think that is about it.
Nevertheless, my collection of working comp parts here at home doesn't
include a socket 7 board and I haven't had any success finding one locally
so if I want to setup a temporary Linux box to play with til I am working
and can afford to buy another machine which is more powerful in all
respects, it probably won't happen til once I am done school and am working
at least close too permanently. Timeline gives that to being some time in
mid-Summer.
So, despite the fact I have a few Pentium class chips around along with
loads of 72 pin sims, my temporary Linux box will end up being a 486 dx 66
mhz w 16 mb of ram 16x BTC IDE cd-rom, and a 1.6 gb Fujitsu HD.
I have done more reading including looking at the hardware requirements to
setup Red Hat 7.2 and Debian 2.2 r 2, the one with speakup built into it.
From what I have read and given my marginal hardware at the moment I have
decided that Debian 2.2 r 2 "potato" would probably be my best bet.
I also read the Debian installation manual because I am a computer geek of
sorts and I don't know any Debian users round here and I don't want to
totally screw things up. <lol>
Any thoughts, recommendations for or against what I've concluded so far.
Due to the minimal hd size of /dev/hda I figured I would use one of these
partitioning schemes.
/dev/hda 1.6 gb fujitsu hd
/dev/hda1
/ 100 mb
/dev/hda2
/usr 700 mb
/dev/hda3
/var 400 mb
/dev/hda5 (this partition will be one of the ones created in as a logical
drive in the extended partition during Linux install, same goes for hda6
and hda7 respectively.
/tmp 100 mb
/dev/hda6
swap 100 mb
/dev/hda7
/home 200 mb
From what I've learned from reading the Debian installation manual, would
work_std be the best setup kernel type for me to choose given my crappy
hardware? See the exerp I've copied from the manual below.
<snip>
Work_std
A more stripped-down user machine, without the X window system or X
applications. Possibly suitable for a laptop or mobile computer. The size
is around
140 MB. (Note that the author has a pretty simple laptop setup including
X11 in even less, around 100 MB).
<end snip>
Also, the most comprehensive kernel choice given the low budget hardware I
have would probably be vanila wouldn't it?
See snip from manual.
begin snip
`vanilla'
The standard kernel package available in Debian. This includes almost all
drivers supported by Linux built as modules, which includes drivers for network
devices, SCSI devices, sound cards, Video4Linux devices, etc. The `vanilla'
flavor includes one Rescue Floppy, one root and three Driver Floppies.
end snip
The other option if you would think it more practical is simply create /,
/usr, swap partition, and /home, ditch /tmp and /var, increase size of /usr
to include enough space for tmp and var dirs to be housed within /usr.
I would also not be boxing myself in as much with 7 tiny partitions using
this second scheme.
So, it would look something like this.
/dev/hda is a 1.6 gb hd
/dev/hda1
/ 100 mb
/dev/hda2
swap partition 100 mb
/dev/hda3
/home 100 mb
/dev/hda4
/usr remaining space on 1.6 gb hard drive
For hardware the 486 has as mentioned before the 1.6 gb hd, a 16x BTC
cd-rom which is jumperable, 16 mb 30 pin sim ram 4x4, isa or vesa ATI video
card don't remember which, and a 16 bit isa sound blaster card of some
sort. No nics in the box at the moment but I was going to add two 3com
3c509 nics too.
Synth is an accent pc.
Anyone have any thoughts on whether partitioning scheme 1 or 2 would be
vbetter and or anything else I've mentioned. Personally, the more I think
it over in my head, as a first-time installer of Linux with limitted
resources, I like scheme 2 better.
I'd appreciate any and all advice anyone has to offer.
You can write to me directly at ed.barnes at janus.northatlantic.nf.ca or
edbarnes at superweb.ca, or reply on the list.
I've installed the Windows ver of Speak Freely as well til I get a Linux
box up and on the go so I could join you folks on the reflector to discuss
this if anyone would find this more convenient.
Is it still at: lwl.braille.uwo.ca:4074
Thanks all and do have a wonderful Sunday.
Ed Barnes
