Linux software...

[Mike Bilow]

 John  Ziele wrote in a message to Mike Bilow:

  J > I was wondering if there was a Linux version that would take
  J > less than 210 megabites of hard space. I am a Freshman at
  J > Wilton  High School in Iowa. And we have been playing with a
  J > new release of Linux, but I don't have enough space to
  J > install it. I would like a version that takes less than 210
  J > mb, just so I could experiment  with it and learn the basics
  J > of this beautiful Operating system. I have tried to dwnld
  J > some versions of Linux but the way some of  these FTP's sort
  J > out there files, confuses me. I was wondering if you could
  J > help me out. If you can I would greatly appreciate it!!!

Many Linux CDs come with a "live filesystem."  This allows you to run Linux
from a very minimal configuration, using just a boot floppy, a swap partition
on the hard drive, and a CD, without actually installing.  Of course, since CD
is a slow medium, system performance will be painful.

I can tell you that I recently installed Red Hat Linux 4.0 from CD onto an old
386DX-25 with a 210 MB HD.  First, I partitioned the hard drive into a 180 MB
main partition and a 30 MB swap partition.  Then I ran the install, opting not
to install kernel source and the C compilers necessary to build a kernel from
source.  I did elect to install XFree86.  When the dust cleared, I ended up
with about 45 MB free on the main partition.  I could have gotten away with a
smaller swap partition, but the machine only had 8 MB RAM and I didn't want to
push my luck.

The machine runs quite well, and is even fairly snappy in X/Windows.
 
-- Mike