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TinyCore on old 486 with ISA only, no PCI

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fratzicu:
Hi,
Is it possible to install TinyCore on an old IBM 486 machine 75 MHz with 16 mb ram and no PCI, only ISA? When I tried to install it, it stopped on "no pci, could not find any access method" or something like that. I have a NE2000 compatible network card and an opti audio card. The only distros that installed and detected correctly (but were slow) were Feather 0.7.5 and Damn Small Linux 1.5.
Also, (I am a kind of a collector) I have anodher 2 old laptops, a Compaq LTE Elite 486 50 Mhz 8 Mb RAM and IBM Thinkpad 755CD 486 DX4 100Mhz 24 Mb RAM also with no PCI, but with PCMCIA. I was hoping to bring them to life. Windows 95 worked pretty good on all those machines.
Also, since the distro is only 10 Mb in size, why not make a floppy series? (of course, network card required)
I imagine yourselves with a smile on your face right now, but it would be nice to just use those machines for accessing the internet, typing a text, printing, remote admin, messenger (I used miranda with win95), mail pop/imap client, those small things, not all in the same time, just basic X. I have put a great hope in TinyCore when I (recently) found the project.
Thanks.

curaga:
Without hacks like the HD install, TC needs 32mb of ram to boot. It takes that much to load the kernel plus the core to ram. SIMM memory is dirt cheap nowadays, you should be able to up all the machines to their max for a few dollars spent at ebay.

This is not only for the min. to boot, it's for comfort when using any apps (I have personal experience of running DSL with 16mb ram, and even the desktop without icons swapped)

Even with max memory, you should probably do the HD install to conserve ram. The thread is here:
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/index.php?topic=308.0

You can create floppy-sized images using any linux system, with the GNU split utility:
--- Quote ---split -b 1440k tinycore.gz floppy
--- End quote ---
Then you'd use "dd" to write each of the floppy* files to a floppy, and on the resulting system (needs linux also) dd them out of the floppies to files. After all files have been moved over, they can be assembled with cat:
--- Quote ---cat floppy* > tinycore.gz
--- End quote ---
This does take 10 floppy moves, 8 for tinycore.gz 2 for the kernel, so a network solution may be preferable. If a linux floppy such as tomsrtbt supports your network card, you can just download the files to the comp.

fratzicu:
Thanks for the answer; just one more question: does tinycore support ISA cards?

curaga:
Yes

fratzicu:
Hi.

I will study the problem more deeply, when I will have time. I wonder if you know a way of how to compile a kernel especially for the hardware installed on a computer (no more hardware), but also based on a hardware detection utility, and then make a floppy or cd linux distro based on it. I didn't find a comprehensive tutorial for that, only parts. I will follow some tips and tutorials I will find on the internet and run some tests.

P.S. : even if this distro is not intended for the old hardware, I hope it will not develop in forgetting it completely and become something like Fedora or Suse. We have plenty of those. Developing a hard disk install script may be a good idea.

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