Hello everybody, I wondering if the Linux would works on my old Compaq Presario 8760 Pentium MMX 166 Mhz, 48 MB Ram, 3 GB hard drive and 40X Afreey CDRom (Bootable CD). Does Mandrake Linux works on Compaq Presario? Thanks

Well, I just installed Redhat 8 on a Pentium 100 with 48 Meg of RAM. The newest Mandrake may require more than 48 Meg of RAM. If you want to run X-Windows (GUI), then you definitely will want to have more than 48 Meg of RAM using the newest version of Mandrake. Otherwise, it will be very slow, due to lots of swapping to virtual memory (hard disk space). The aforementioned Redhat 8 box is a server and has no X-Windows installed, and therefore has no problem with only 48 Meg of RAM. I'd install an older version of Mandrake (or Redhat), such as 6.1, which I ran on a Pentium 166 with 64 Meg of RAM just fine, X-Windows and all. Good luck.

Hello, I tried like the devil to get Caldera 2.3 and Mandrake 6.5 to run on my Presario 4112 (P120 w/ 16 MB RAM, 4GB HD), with no avail. Linux would install, but would freeze during boot-up. Also X couldn't be configured properly with the Compaq video card. Compaq build these strictly as Windoze machines. You might have some luck with a more recent version of Linux. I ended up just bulding a Linux box. That way I knew the components were Linux compatible and it took the guess work out of it. Give it a try though, you might get lucky. Good luck, and let us know if it works.

Chris: Well, according to the retail box, Caldera 2.2 REQUIRES 32 Meg of RAM, and I doubt 2.3 requires less, so it's not shocking that a computer with 16 Meg of RAM wouldn't work with it. DBPowerWCRulez and Chris: Lots of Compaq Presarios with Linux

Hiya C Legend, My compaq presario just tower case, So I might buy cheaper ram can do up 80 MB max on the compaq's mobo. I've searched on google and they have lot of websites have selling a compaq's ram sticks, Curical site seem steepy prices, and other website very cheaper price... I got Mandrake 9.1 CDs packed with Linux Format magz. They're good magz and imported from UK. Linux Format magz at border's store in your town and buy only US$14.95 a magz and free distro CDs.

Hey DBPowerWCRulez! Thanks for the Linux Format mag tip. I'll have to look for it at Barnes and Noble (there's a Borders here in Wichita somewhere, but not sure where.)

I've been trying forever to get Linux running on an old Compaq Presario 8702, and I'm about to give up. I had RH 7.2 running for a while, but I was not able to upgrade to 7.3 or 8.0. (Installation program aborted) It seems to run OK doing simple stuff like DHCP server, web server and so on. I wanted to run a music server for RioReceiver on it, and it keeps giving spurious JVM error 11s. My guess, based on behaviour, is it has something to do with running out of memory. I have upgraded to the max 128mb, but no joy. I've been trying to install SuSE 8.1, but it keeps aborting during the installer with no details. I'm wondering if the video uses shared memory and somehow this is not being communicated correctly? (ie the video overwrites main memory or vice versa?) Anyway, I'm looking for any ideas short of buying a new pc... Jay