Re: Is my old RedHat computer doomed?

Martin Gregorie wrote:
On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 21:15:38 +0100, Will Kemp wrote:

Invest in a RAM upgrade. I'd imagine the thing would be able to take at least 512MB. It probably won't cost all that much if you get it online. Ebay's probably a good bet for secondhand RAM that will work with it.

My laptop before last was built in about 00 and i upgraded that to 512MB - that was a while ago, but as far as i remember i bought the RAM from ebay. It will last you for another 8 years if you upgrade the RAM now!

Then install the latest Fedora. ;-)

That may not be possible. The laptop I'm writing this on (Thinkpad 560Z)
is still running Fedora 1 (the last and only Kernel 2.4 version of Fedora)
because it can only boot from hdd or floppy (it has external floppy and CD
drives). The Kernel 2.6 installer boot system won't fit on a floppy, so I
can't install later versions of Fedora.

The easy way around that is to pull the hard drive out and put it in a machine with a DVD drive. You can get "IDE adapters" for notebook hard drives (or at least for those old IDE ones), which allow you to plug them into a desktop IDE port. I had to do that several times with my old DEC laptop.

It's also worth checking for a network boot image - which allows you to do the install via a network connection. I don't know if they'll still fit on a floppy though...

The same may apply to other distros, so the OP should check that he can
boot from a later distro's installation media before investing in the
extra RAM.



--
http://MaldonIT.co.uk
.

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