4mb Laptop HOWTO by Bruce Richardson (e reader manga .TXT) 📖

4mb Laptop HOWTO

 

Bruce Richardson <brichardson@lineone.net>

 

25 March 2000

 

How to put a “grown-up” Linux on a small-spec (4mb RAM, <=200mb hard

disk) laptop.

–—

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

1.1 Why this document was written.

 

1.2 What use is a small laptop?

 

1.3 Why not just upgrade the laptop?

 

1.4 What about 4mb desktop machines?

 

1.5 What this document doesn’t do.

 

1.6 Where to find this document.

1.7 Copyright 2. The Laptops 2.1 Basic Specifications

2.1.1 Compaq Contura Aero

 

2.1.2 Toshiba T1910

2.2 The Problem 2.3 The Solution 3. Choices Made

3.1 What to use to create the initial root partition?

3.2 The Distribution

3.2..1 But I don’t like Slackware!

 

3.3 Which installation method to use?

3.4 Partition Layout

3.4.1 Basic Requirement

 

3.4.2 How complex a layout?

 

3.5 Which components to install?

4. The Pre-installation Procedure 4.1 muLinux Preparation

4.2 Prepare the installation root files.

 

4.3 Create the partitions.

 

4.3.1 Mini-Linuces and ext2 filesystems - an important note.

 

4.3.2 Procedure

5. The Installation 5.1 Boot the machine

5.2 Floppy/Parport CD-ROM Install

 

5.3 Network/PCMCIA Install

 

5.3.1 PCMCIA install on the Aero

5.4 Set-up

5.4.1 AddSwap

 

5.4.2 Target

 

5.4.3 Select

 

5.4.4 Install

 

5.4.5 Configure

 

5.4.6 Exit

5.5 Pre-reboot Configuration

5.6 Post-reboot Configuration.

 

5.6.1 Re-use the temporary root.

 

5.6.2 Other configuration tweaks.

6. Conclusion

7. Appendix A:

7.1 A - Base Linux System

7.1..1 Packages considered for omission:

 

7.1..2 Packages installed:

7.2 AP - Non-X Applications

7.2..1 Packages considered for inclusion:

 

7.2..2 Packages installed:

7.3 D - Development Tools

7.3..1 Packages installed:

7.4 E - Emacs

7.4..1 Packages installed:

7.5 F - FAQs and HOWTOs

7.5..1 Packages installed:

7.6 K - Kernel Source

7.6..1 Packages Installed:

7.7 N - Networking Tools and Apps

7.7..1 Packages installed:

7.8 Tetex

7.8..1 Packages installed:

7.9 Y - BSD Games Collection

7.9..1 Packages installed:

7.10 End result

8. Appendix B: Resources relevant to this HOWTO

–—

1. Introduction

1.1. Why this document was written.

 

I got my hands on two elderly laptops, both with just 4mb RAM and

small (<=200mb) hard drives. I wanted to install Linux on them. The

documentation for this kind of laptop all recommends installing either

a mini-Linux or an old (and therefor compact) version of one of the

professional distributions. I wanted to install an up-to-date

professional distribution.

 

1.2. What use is a small laptop?

 

Plenty. It isn’t going to run X or be a development box (see “Which

components to install?”) but if you are happy at the console you have

a machine that can do e-mail, networking, writing etc. Laptops also

make excellent diagnostic/repair tools and the utilities for that will

easily fit onto small laptops.

 

1.3. Why not just upgrade the laptop?

 

Upgrading old laptops is not much cheaper than upgrading new ones.

That’s a lot to spend on an old machine, especially considering that

the manufacturer isn’t supporting it any more and spare parts are hard

to find.

 

1.4. What about 4mb desktop machines?

 

The procedure described in this document will work perfectly well on a

desktop PC. On the other hand, upgrading a desktop machine is far

easier and cheaper than upgrading a laptop. Even if you don’t upgrade

it, there are still simpler options. You could take out the hard disk,

put it in a more powerful machine, install Linux, trim it to fit and

then put the disk back in the old machine.

 

1.5. What this document doesn’t do.

 

This document is not a general HOWTO about installing Linux on laptops

or even a specific HOWTO for either of the two machines mentioned

here. It simply describes a way of squeezing a large Linux into a very

small space, citing two specific machines as examples.

 

1.6. Where to find this document.

 

The latest copy of this document can be found in several formats at

http://website.lineone.net/~brichardson/linux/4mb-laptops/.

 

1.7. Copyright

 

This document is copyright (c) Bruce Richardson 2000. It may be

distributed under the terms set forth in the LDP license at

sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/COPYRIGHT.html.

 

This HOWTO is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or

modify it under the terms of the LDP license. This document is

distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any

warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or

fitness for a particular purpose. See the LDP license for more

details.

 

Toshiba and T1910 are trademarks of Toshiba Corporation. Compaq and

Contura Aero are trademarks of Compaq Computer Corporation.

2. The Laptops

This section describes the laptops that I have used this procedure on,

the problems faced when installing Linux on them and the solutions to

those problems (in outline).

 

2.1. Basic Specifications

 

2.1.1. Compaq Contura Aero

 

� 25MHz 486SX CPU

 

� 4mb RAM

 

� 170mb Hard Disk

 

� 1 PCMCIA Type II slot

 

� External PCMCIA 3.5” Floppy drive (— The PCMCIA floppy drive has

a proprietary interface which is partly handled by the Aero’s

unique BIOS. The Linux PCMCIA drivers can’t work with it. According

to the PCMCIA-HOWTO, if the drive is connected when the laptop

boots it will work as a standard drive and Card Services will

ignore the socket but it is not hot-swappable. However, I found

that the drive becomes inaccessible as soon as Card Services start

unless there is a mounted disk in the drive. This has implications

for the installation process - these are covered at the relevant

points. —)

 

2.1.2. Toshiba T1910

 

� 33MHz 486SX CPU

 

� 4mb RAM

 

� 200 mb Hard Disk

 

� Internal 3.5” Floppy drive

 

� 1 PCMCIA Type II/III slot

 

2.2. The Problem

 

The small hard disks and the lack of an internal floppy on the Aero

make the installation more tricky than normal but the real problem is

the RAM. None of the current distributions has an installation disk

that will boot in 4mb, not even if the whole hard disk is a swap

partition.

 

The standard installation uses a boot disk to uncompress a root-partition image (either from a second floppy or from CD-ROM) into a

ram-disk. The root-image is around 4mb in size. That’s all the RAM

available in this scenario. Try it and it freezes while unpacking the

root-image.

 

2.3. The Solution

 

The answer is to eliminate the ram-disk. If you can mount root on a

physical partition you will have enough memory to do the install.

Since the uncompressed ram-disk is too big to fit on a floppy, the

only place left is on the hard disk of the laptop. The steps are:

 

1. Find something that will boot in 4mb ram and which can also create

ext2 partitions.

 

2. Use it to create a swap partition and a small ext2 partition on the

laptop’s hard disk.

 

3. Uncompress the installation root-image and copy it onto the ext2

partition.

 

4. Boot the laptop from the installation boot-disk, pointing it at the

ext2 partition on the hard disk.

 

5. The installation should go more or less as normal from here.

 

The only question was whether a distribution that wouldn’t install

(under normal circumstances) on the laptops would run on them. The

short answer is “Yes”.

 

If you’re an old Linux hand then that’s all you need to know. If not,

read on - some of the steps listed above aren’t as simple as they

look.

3. Choices Made

This section describes the choices available, which options are

practical, which ones I decided on and why.

 

3.1. What to use to create the initial root partition?

 

The best tool for this is a mini-Linux. There’s a wide selection of

small Linuces available on the net, but most of them won’t boot in 4mb

RAM. I found two that will:

 

SmallLinux http://smalllinux.netpedia.net/

SmallLinux will boot in as little as 2mb RAM but its root disk

can’t be taken out of the drive, which is a shame since

otherwise it has everything we need (i.e. fdisk, mkswap and

mkfs.ext2). SmallLinux can create the needed partitions but

can’t be used to copy the root partition.

 

muLinux http://sunsite.auc.dk/mulinux/

muLinux will boot in 4mb but only in a limited single-user mode.

In this mode fdisk and mkswap are available but mkfs.ext2 and

the libraries needed to run it are on the /usr partition which

is not available in maintenance mode. To use muLinux to do the

whole pre-installation procedure the files needed to create ext2

filesystems must be extracted from the usr disk image and

copied onto a floppy.

 

This gives the option of either using SmallLinux to create the

partitions and muLinux to copy the root partition or using muLinux to

do the whole job. Since I had two laptops I tried both.

 

3.2. The Distribution

 

It didn’t take much time to choose Slackware. Apart from the fact that

I like it but haven’t used it much and want to learn more, I

considered the following points:

 

� Slackware has possibly the most low-tech DIY install of all the

major distributions. It is also one of the most flexible, coming

with a wide range of boot-disk kernels to suit many different

machines. This makes it well suited to the kind of hacking about

required in this scenario.

 

� Slackware supports all the methods listed in “Which Installation

method to use?”.

 

� Slackware is a distribution designed by one person. I’m sure

Patrick Volkerding won’t object if I say this means its

configuration tools are simpler and more streamlined. In my opinion

this makes the job of trimming the installation to fit cramped

conditions easier.

 

Version 7.0 was the latest version when I tried this so that’s what I

used.

 

3.2.0.1. But I don’t like Slackware!

 

You don’t have to use it. I can’t answer for all the distributions but

I know that Debian, Red Hat and SuSE offer a range of installation

methods and have an “expert” installation procedure (— Does Debian

do any other kind? —)

 

which can be used here. Most of the steps in this document would apply

to any of the distributions without change.

 

If you haven’t used the expert method with your preferred distribution

before, do a trial run on a simple desktop machine to get the feel of

it and to explore the options it offers.

 

3.3. Which installation method to use?

 

Floppy Install

This means churning out 15 floppies - which only gives you an

absolute minimal install and requires a second stage to get the

apps you want on. It’s also very slow on such low-spec machines.

This is a last resort if you can’t make the others work.

 

Parallel-port Install

Where the parallel port has an IDE device, parallel cable or

pocket ethernet adaptor (— A pocket lan adaptor installation

onto these machines will be very slow. —)

 

attached. This would be a good choice for the Aero, leaving the

PCMCIA slot free to run the floppy drive.

 

PCMCIA Install

As above, this could be a CD-ROM or network install. This would

be the best method for the T1910 - on the Aero it’s