# FreeBSD on old laptop



## jigglywiggly (Mar 23, 2010)

So I got this t4900ct laptop, it's a beast.

75mhz, 40 megs of ram, 800 meg HD... I want to get FreeBSD on it, biggest problem, no cd drive... I wanted to do Damn Small Linux, except that's a matter of 38 floppy disks... (50 megs)

I don't think I can get any pcmcia to cd drive thing, because I need to boot from it, and let's be frank this laptop is ooooold.

So which version of FreeBSD lets you install by floppies? I don't care too much how old it is. I mean the laptop runs Windows 95 ok...

If nothing else, I will just put Windows 3.1 on it solely because it runs fast. Was going to put os/2 warp, but that's like huge.


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## jailed (Mar 23, 2010)

I've challenged the same issue long time ago. No PXE because it's old. I installed grub for windows, then try to boot the install from it but no success because it has 32MB RAM. Tried so many things. How did I do?

I removed the 2.5" harddisk from inside. Using a converter doesn't work. So I removed the other laptop's hard drive then replaced it. And install BSD from CDROM.

If you have another laptop you have with 2.5" IDE support, and if it's easy to remove the drive from laptop; then I suggest you my way.

Good luck.


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## jigglywiggly (Mar 23, 2010)

That's a very creative way to do it  I might do that if no other alternates are available.


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## vermaden (Mar 23, 2010)

@jigglywiggly

I have recently played with FreeBSD 8.0 in VirtualBox to check how small amount of RAM can it run, with SWAP DISABLED it run on 32MB RAM on pure console and X11 on 40MB RAM (without hald/dbus). With SWAP ENABLED it would need even less RAM.

Get 8.0 and do not look back.


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## graudeejs (Mar 23, 2010)

vermaden said:
			
		

> @jigglywiggly
> 
> I have recently played with FreeBSD 8.0 in VirtualBox to check how small amount of RAM can it run, with SWAP DISABLED it run on 32MB RAM on pure console and X11 on 40MB RAM (without hald/dbus). With SWAP ENABLED it would need even less RAM.
> 
> Get 8.0 and do not look back.



And what if you compile custom kernel


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## vermaden (Mar 23, 2010)

@killasmurf86

I did not bother to do that, propably will need about 16-20MB RAM then.


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## jailed (Mar 23, 2010)

I again suggest putting the hdd to another computer if one exists. It may make your job easier. I have about 5-6 machines with 32-64 mb ram that are working well with FreeBSD. Even Windows Me too can work on 32 MB. Compiling the kernel with 32-64 mb fails but 128 mb is enough on my tests.


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## kpedersen (Mar 23, 2010)

Perhaps a solution would be to just use enough floppy disks to take you into the btx loader or even sysinstall.

Then you can use other media that would not boot but should still install fine.

I doubt the laptop has USB but by plugging in a usb cdrom drive, it would then be able to install from that media.

So try a "pcmcia to cd drive thing" once you are inside sysinstall

Where there is a will, there is a way.


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## DutchDaemon (Mar 23, 2010)

I would probably use the floppies from ftp://ftp.freebsd.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/7.2-RELEASE/floppies/, follow http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/install-pre.html (*2.3.7 Prepare the Boot Media*), get a minimal install up and running, and freebsd-update to 8.0.


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## jigglywiggly (Mar 23, 2010)

Dutch Daemon's idea seems like the best for a good start, will try that first.


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## jigglywiggly (Mar 23, 2010)

Eh booted from floppy in install, then I hit do a network install, ufnorutantely it doesn't see:
Ethernet cable from this 3com pcmcia thing, all I see in the install is

```
pilp0 (Parallel port IP (plip) peer connection (tried it doesn't work)
sl0 SLIP interface on device /dev/cuad0 (com1)
ppp0 PPP interface on device /dev/cuad0 (COM1)
```

It doesn't see the parallel port converter to ethernet, or the 3com pcmcia ethernet card. There is a flopyp set install option, but uh I don't think it's any of the floppies I have.

http://www.3com.com/products/en_US/detail.jsp?tab=support&pathtype=support&sku=3CCFE574BT

That's the pcmcia thing, worked in Windows.


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