Little Ol' Install

[Philip C Mendelsohn <mend0070@tc.umn.edu>]

Given the number of old 486's that have recently found new homes, I'm
betting (hoping) some of you might have a little insight into a wrinkle I
have stumbled into.

THE SETUP:

I thought I'd get my 11 year old a computer for Xmas.  We had a couple of
old boxes, but the one that got chosen was a really clean DELL 486 DX2
50MHz from the mother-in-laws work.  8 MB of RAM, and a little Quantum
80MB drive.  My boy's all impressed with Linux, so I thought I'd set him
up.

THE PROBLEM:

Picked up an IDE CD-ROM at Comp. Ren., because it's the easiest way for us
to get at the install discs.  Dropped it in, no trouble.  I don't really
care what's on the system already, so I figured I'd treat it as a new
drive and reformat when I got there.  As of now, I've tried all three
distros I have lying around and none will finish the install.

RED HAT 5.1:

This seems to really hate the VGA video on the motherboard.  It starts
loading from the boot disk, and turns off the video.  I tried using a
monitor that's old enough that it doesn't have a power sleep mode, and
apparently the Red Hat 5.1 install doesn't like to drive the chipset on
the board -- or maybe it tests it first?  Anyway, I don't know what
happened here.

Caldera Open Linux 2.2

This ran throught the boot sequence OK, found the new CD-ROM, and got to
the part about loading LIZARD, but then it took about 45 minutes to get
anywhere, and finally barfed, offering to kick me into a shell, which
wasn't really -- all it would do is exit back to the dying install
program.  Did tell me that the CD-ROM was getting some attention.

MANDRAKE 6:

On powerup, finds the CD-ROM and boots up the install kernel.  It finds
the CD-ROM as hdb, but then hangs when it gets to the line that says
"running install."  The other console keeps saying "Interrupt lost".

I believe that I have only one IDE controller on this board.  Is linux
looking for it at hdc or something?

I thought that I should at least be able to get a basic install working,
then worry about throwing a little more disk space and memory at the
system.  The whole deal was supposed to be an educational xmas present,
but I'd kind of like to keep it from being a lesson in frustration
management for my son, so if there are any groovy suggestions (short of
punting to a new box) I'd appreciate them.

Thanks!

Phil Mendelsohn

-- 
Life is complex:
It has real and imaginary components.
                     --Unknown