need an OS crap pc

weeder

ive got me a lappy thats P1 500Mbhdd 4MB ram and a dlink wireless card

i neeed an os...all ill be doing is web browsing and msning

willing to use icewm or fluxbox but sort of need some gui

is there any distro that will let me do that with such little ram

niallb

Turn it into a wireless AP if you've got an ethernet card for it too.
Alternatively, make it into a smart pictureframe, and hang it on a wall.
500MB is loads of space fo pics, and you can copy more
in over wireless. Just a framebuffer, and fbi as a viewer is all you need.

You'll have no comfort with it in 4MB if you want a GUI and a modern distro.
There'll be no memory left after running even fluxbox.
Old 2.0, or 1.2 kernels were much smaller.

Alternatively, try an old slackware with a console install,
and look out for a vga browser called arachne.

Come to think of it, arachne ran on DOS as well,
and that might even suit this box better.
Redhat 4.2 or earlier might work, but I think the earlier the better. Just go back to a distro that was released when 4MB was normal.
I used to run 3 users simultaneously on an 8MB 486 - one of them running X, and two serial terminals, so an old distro will sort you out.

Here's a link for starters:
http://www.superant.com/smalllinux/

Recommends 2MB as a starting point.

There's a 2 floppy distribution that has X, which might help.

Here's a page for some ideas:
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Mini_Distributions/

weeder

thanks for advice ...im looking for some new ram now

niallb

What model laptop is it?
RAM might be hard to come by!

NiallB

weeder

http://linux.toshiba-dme.co.jp/linux/eng/spec.php3?model=PA1240U-S2


thats what it is exactly came today 16MB ram i think