UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

I've got an old laptop and i want to try unix on it, but i'm a unix newbie, so i don't know what i have to choose.
We're talking about a laptop with an intel 80C386SX-20 CPU in it, with 2 MB Ram and 40 MB harddisk. Not really powerfull specs.
Is it possible to install a unix version on it. Or isn't it possible at all?
If it's possible, which unix do i have to choose? Is there any 'best' choice?
I think i will not be able to install a new unix version on it, but most authors do not provide old versions on their site.
I need your help.
Thanx in advance for any usefull answers.

Please check out the FAQ Pages as there is a ton of information that you will find immediately useful!

Thats one crappy laptop, there is a BSD derivative called m0n0 which is the only Unix I have used that I think would work without too much effort on such limited hardware, maybe I'm wrong and there are others out there but this is the only one I have used that I think could do it.

Other than that I haven't tried to use any recent FreeBSD releases on old hardware but I think it might be possible to use FreeBSD on it, plus FreeBSD is probably the best Unix to learn on and has a great community.

Even then it wont be easy if your new to Unix, 80C's only had like 40mhz or something didn't they. I would try and sell that thing to an antique store, it's probably worth a bit by now

Good luck.

Ché Kristo

I have Redhat 7.2 loaded on a machine that is not nearly as powerful as yours. Since Redhat has moved away from desktop support you could try the latest verion of Fedora. Suse could be a very good choice also.

Show us. The OP said his specs are "intel 80C386SX-20 CPU in it, with 2 MB Ram and 40 MB"; you're running RedHat on a machine with lower specs? I'm doubting that... but I'd gladly be proven wrong. Notice, those are MB units, not GB...

I've seen Redhat run on some poor hardware (Pentium II) but this is a 386SX. If you can configure the kernel to run here, you are defeated by memory and no L2 cache! I seriously doubt that Redhat 7.2 runs on something worse than this. That would put it at Intel 286.

Thomas

It seems as how I misspoke and now have to eat some crow.
I waited until I got home so I could check the specs because I couldn't remember the model number of my laptop... Compaq Presario 1070
Here is a link to the specifications...
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/d...dlc=en&lang=en

I appologize for speaking before checking my facts.