Best distro for old Pentium I box? 3

[prophotodx]

At my office I have a really really old Pentium I box, our old network server. I would like to host one or two samba shares on it, as well as our local ftp server. One of our servers is running Fedora 3 and the other is on FC4. I FC3/4 going to be too much OS?

...Take it easy on the noobie...be elementary...Thanx...



DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)

 

[Kozusnik]

Any linux distro should be fine. Remember there is a lot of bloat with GUI. If you plan to run GUI mode, you'll need mucho RAM and have the time to wait for the GUI to load. I'd recommend you run in text mode only.

In the file /etc/inittab, you'll see a line like this...
id:5:initdefault:
Change the 5 to a 3 to make the box text only.

As long as the box has 128MB of RAM, I'd load whichever distro, allow GUI (if you can), configure it, change the inittab file and reboot. If you need to get back to GUI...log in and run startx.

Another way is to load webmin. You can remotely configure the servers from a web browser and you don't need gui running on the box.

Or...go with Damn Small Linux or something like that. It runs well even in GUI on older machines.

Mark

 

[prophotodx]

Thanx, I will be setting that box up in the next month or so after I finish our new server, I will post my progress!



DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)

 

[QatQat]

Hi there,

I agree with Kozusnik, and to add, a very strict service configuration will also do the trick.

We run a linux FC2 installation on each windoz desktop using VMware for a solution that has been developed that needs this weird setup and all linux (virtual) bixes only have 96mb of RAM allocated yet they perform perfectly.

We just disabled all un-needed daemons at startup and the linux installations perform perfectly.


cheers

QatQat

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

 

[prophotodx]

sorry...noobie here...how is that done?



DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)

 

[QatQat]

If you are running a redhat based distro (fedora, RH enterprise, mandriva/mandrake, novell suse linux, etc..) probably you have a nifty utility called chkconfig installed by default.

if you run

chkconfig --list

you will get a list of daemons and their state in different runlevels. Now, if you are running a graphic interface (Xwindows) your run level would be 5, 3 instad is a fully functional, network enabled, non graphical runlevel.

an example will clarify how to use chkconfig to modify your daemons setup.

example. You want samba to run at level 3 but not your DNS server (named)

here is what you do.

chkconfig --level 3 smb on
chkconfig --level 3 named off


chkconfig will create necessary symbolic links to your runlevel direcotries in /etc.



If you want to understand more or if you are not running a redhat based distro here is what to do and why.

Linux stores all scripts for your daemons in the directory /etc/init.d/

if yor run

ls -l /etc/init.d/

you will see all executable bash scripts that launch your daemons.

if you have a look in your /etc/ directory you will find also some symbolic links called
rc3.d
rc4.d
rc5.d
etc...

those are links to your runlevel directories which are normally subdirectories of

/etc/rc.d/

if you are using a debian based distro (ubuntu, debian, slackware, knoppix live distro etc..)
you will find your runlevel directories as direct subdirectories of /etc


anyway, wherever your rc3.d directory is, it will contain links to scripts for your runlevel 3, your rc5.d will instead have links to scripts related to your runlevel 5 and so on.

if you open any of those directories, let's assume rc3.d, you will find that links are named in the following way


S or K + number + script name

the first letter, S for start and K for Kill, will determine wether the daemon referred to in the link will be started or not at runlevel 3. The number will simply tell linux the startup order.

For example if you have created your own script with your firewall rules at startup and you have a link to it in your rc3.d directory, you will have to set its number to something higher that iptables, which is the startup script for your netfilter firewall.

another example
if you rename your sendmail script

mv S80sendmail K80sendmail

your mail server will not be started at runlevel 3 next time you restart linux.

Hope this helps you understand linux services better.

Cheers

QatQat


Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

 

[prophotodx]

Wow!! Thanx!

DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)

 

[QatQat]

you are welcome,

one more linux user is one less windoz user.

Cheers

QatQat

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.

 

[RhythmAce]

one more linux user is one less windoz user

Or "one more linux user is one less windoz sufferer" ;-)

 

[robbieguy2003]

As said above, FC should run nicely if the rams there and it has a minimal config.

Personally i would run Slackware for this (the 1st ever distro and still very small if cut down).

Slackware however is one of the tougher distros to use and being able to install from source is really a requirement to get everything running.

FC should do it nicely though and getting it ready to roll with Yum should be nice and easy.

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[prophotodx]

I have been a winbloz user for years, since my second computer (486dx, windoz v3...). I am at the point where I would drop windows in a heartbeat if linux would run my graphics apps, adobe cs2, and not crash. Maybe we will get lucky and apple will release osx for pc!!

The network server at my work has changed to fc4/3, and I am slowly learning. I still have a very hard time with installations. I have been two days trying to get a driver installed in fc4 to allow my raid controller to work as primary storage. At least I am getting paid to learn it!!

DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)

 

[robbieguy2003]

DBX, which raid controller are you using. Normally near the start of the installation if it hasnt found any suitable drives it will ask about adding device drivers. I've used FC2-4 Out the box on Compaq/HP SmartArrays and the Adaptec Cards on Supermicro servers without problems.

I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[prophotodx]

I have a supermicro board and a highpoint 1820a card. it is driving me looney and their support is not that great.

Could I ask a favor? Could you download the file from this link:

http://www.highpoint-tech.com/BIOS + Driver/rr1820a/Linux/rr182x-opensource-v1.13-0923.tgz

...and then read over the instructions and dummy them down for me? Wow, that would be HUGE!! I can't seem to get the normal driver to work, and now they are telling me to build it from the open source driver. The instructions are either way over my head or written really really badly...

DBX
(Try it my way, it might work...)

 

[robbieguy2003]

Hi DBX,

The supermicros i use have the Adaptec Controllers on (not the highpoint) - its the 1u Dual Xeon with x4 Scsi Disks however i know people that run Fedora Core on the Highpoint controller.

Ill ask around and get back to you.



I wish someone would just call me Sir, without adding 'Your making a scene'.

Rob

 

[QatQat]

Hi DBX,

I had a look at your controller driver, and I have two considerations:

1) It could be highly frustrating to go through this for you
2) It will however boost your linux knowledge

But first, I would recommend to install it as a kernel patch, it would be easier, nevertheless, you still have to come to terms with using menuconfig and so on.

I think that the README file included in the tarball is pretty detailed but it assumes you are familiar with kernel/modules/patches etc..

So I recommend you start with a good howto from

http://www.tldp.org

, and get some information about the kernel; I am not sure they have a full 2.6 documentation but they had a very good guide to kernel 2.4.

Google will also come with several thousand good articles about your kernel, how to load/unoad modules, how to recompile it, etc..

A good tip, when you install your linux distro always include your kernel source/headers and stuff needed for kernel programming. FC installer has got a full section for Kernel programming that many users do not include due to its size at install time but it is good to have for your initial stages with linux. When your system will be in production, then you can consider a fresh and leaner install.


If you get stuck while messing up your kernel (just joking but probably it will happen), tek-tips is the best place to ask for help.

Cheers

QatQat

Life is what happens when you are making other plans.