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## 1. Introduction

## 1.1 Why this document was written.

I got my hands on two elderly laptops, both with just 4mb RAM and small (<=200mb) hard drives. I wanted to install Linux on them. The documentation for this kind of laptop all recommends installing either a mini-Linux or an old (and therefor compact) version of one of the professional distributions. I wanted to install an up-to-date professional distribution.

## 1.2 What use is a small laptop?

Plenty. It isn't going to run X or be a development box (see Which components to install?) but if you are happy at the console you have a machine that can do e-mail, networking, writing etc. Laptops also make excellent diagnostic/repair tools and the utilities for that will easily fit onto small laptops.

## 1.3 Why not just upgrade the laptop?

Upgrading old laptops is not much cheaper than upgrading new ones. That's a lot to spend on an old machine, especially considering that the manufacturer isn't supporting it any more and spare parts are hard to find.

## 1.4 What about 4mb desktop machines?

The procedure described in this document will work perfectly well on a desktop PC. On the other hand, upgrading a desktop machine is far easier and cheaper than upgrading a laptop. Even if you don't upgrade it, there are still simpler options. You could take out the hard disk, put it in a more powerful machine, install Linux, trim it to fit and then put the disk back in the old machine.

## 1.5 What this document doesn't do.

This document is not a general HOWTO about installing Linux on laptops or even a specific HOWTO for either of the two machines mentioned here. It simply describes a way of squeezing a large Linux into a very small space, citing two specific machines as examples.

## 1.6 Where to find this document.

The latest copy of this document can be found in several formats at http://website.lineone.net/~brichardson/linux/4mb_laptops/.

## 1.7 Copyright

This document is copyright (c) Bruce Richardson 2000. It may be distributed under the terms set forth in the LDP license at sunsite.unc.edu/LDP/COPYRIGHT.html.

This HOWTO is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the LDP license. This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. See the LDP license for more details.

Toshiba and T1910 are trademarks of Toshiba Corporation. Compaq and Contura Aero are trademarks of Compaq Computer Corporation.

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