Need help in installing Knoppix on a really old laptop.

Hello everyone :)

I am trying to install Knoppix on an old laptop.
Pentium II, MMX, 266Mhz, 640K Main and 32M extended, 2GB HD with a few Bad clusters.

I have managed so far to create a primary Linux of 1.5 GB and a Swap of about 600K by using DSL. After I did that, Knoppix 5.1 saw the swap and used it. Managed to load the GUI and the background with the mountains but then crashed.

I am afraid that this happened for either/both of two reasons. Bad clusters in Swap file which Knoppix didn't recognize and very low memory.

Does anyone know if there is a Knoppix that can run on this much memory with the GUI that 5.1 has? If yes, where can I find, download it? Does anyone know how can I make knoppix scan the swap file and see if there are any bad clusters and mark them so that they are not used?

I really want to make this laptop work. Please help.
Please note that this laptop was running Windows 98

Thank you all in advance

Hi, with only 32M of main memory it is not possible to run knoppix. The reason for this is KDE memory requirement, and minimum with KDE 3 is 128M. DSL linux is your best choice here.

you can try using the mkdosswapfile command before loading KDE but it may or may not help

either way KDE is not going to like it much


You may also try trying knoppix with a different desktop... using the desktop= cheatcode.,.... try something like xfce

Hello hal8000, unforunately DSL cannot recognize my gfx card :(
In order to make the partitions I had to load DSL on another computer to understand what each option was.
On the other hand Knoppix 5.1 recognized the card correctly and it displayed the background of the desktop perfectly....

Another problem I am facing onemyndseye is that I CANNOT use any cheatcodes. I don't understand why, but the keys F2 and F3 don't work, and I cannot enter any cheatcodes either...

I am downloading Knoppix 3.2 as we speak. Maybe this will do the trick...

Any other ideas anyone?

".....Another problem I am facing onemyndseye is that I CANNOT use any cheatcodes. I don't understand why, but the keys F2 and F3 don't work, and I cannot enter any cheatcodes either....."

shot in the dark:

Your keyboard needs a certain modules loaded to make it work..... to enter cheatcodes at the boot prompt hook up an external keyboard - that should do the trick.

once the system is installed you may remove to external keyboard and add any needed cheatcodes into your grub menu.list

puppy linux may be an option.
my laptop has 32mb ram pre-installed and a slot in the back where you can add more ram. i have an additional 64mb in that slot and have knoppix 5.1 harddrive installed with swap function enabled . all systems go as far as i can tell so far .KDE desktop and openoffice are both running fine.
have installed a new hard drive of 20 gig replacing the original 4 gig.
2gig seems just t o small to me.
maybe you can run your swap partition on an USB external hard drive or USB flash drive to give you more usage of your 2 gig..