PC Projects - Fedora Core on Pentium
Submitted by tachyon on May 5, 2005 - 7:04am
This is on a Compaq DeskPro 4000 with >128MB RAM.
First I had a successful Red Hat 7.3 installation on this machine. Except for the fact that I hadn't done the installation that included gcc, so nothing new could be compiled.
I tried doing an upgrade, having chosen the graphical install. But it hung somewhere during the install. So I rebooted and erased the partitions. Then I did the text-only install, and it finished fine.
Then I tried to start it up. Halted booting. It wants me to run fsck because there are directory errors! On a clean install! What's up with that!
I have run fsck a couple of times, and restarted when it said it was finished, but it still doesn't boot.
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further developments with FC2
I had a drive with FC2 installed already from work, but it was on different hardware - much more recent. I put it into the Compaq and it wouldn't boot. No surprise there...
So time for a clean install. Hey, the USB card was supported during CD install... very nice! Done, and it boots now. Now time to update it...
machine replacement
I am glad to announce that this project has moved to a Pentium II!
Only it hasnt got enough RAM- it needs EDO DIMMs and I aint got any.
Is it an early P2? Most woul
Is it an early P2? Most would take regular SDRAM. What chipset does it run? There's a lot of 440BX machines out there for really cheap, and they tend to take standard RAM.
RAM woes
Ah thanks for the support, but I took a 64MB DIMM from a Powermac 5500 and it physically doesn't fit! How do I find out what chipset it runs? I might know my macs inside out but have never had PCs until recently.
PS, in terms of cheap, the price has to be $0.
Yeah, I can find P2's for $0
Yeah, I can find P2's for $0 to $20. You just gotta know your area tech sites. The DIMMs for PCI PPC Macs are 5v DIMMs. Most PC RAM is 3.3v. If you look at the position of the notches, you can tell if it's 3.3v vs 5v by if it's off to the short side, or in the middle of the space for the notch.
To know your chipset, look at the other large chips that are not the CPU. You'll usually see something like the:
intel
AGPset
FW82443BX
L921TA13
SL2VH
intel (c) '98
The line after AGPset ends with a code 443BX. Thus, it's a 440BX series. If it's a 440 series of most any type, it'll probably take 3.3v SDRAM. Whether it takes SDRAM, PC66 SDRAM, PC100 or PC133 might depend highly on the mobo and CPU you install. Some can change mobo speeds based on the CPU you install, so if you upgrade a Slot 1 system from a P-II 400 with a 100MHz bus to a P-III 600e it'll probably turn the bus up to 133MHz.
For the particular computer I'm looking at, I bought it for $5 with no RAM. I dropped 256MB of PC-100 RAM I had on hand, pulled the stock PII 400 and put in a $5 PIII 500MHz Slot 1 CPU from the same place the computer came from and then installed Ubuntu from the free Shipit CDs they send me. So, in actual cash spent I've got $10 in a decent low-end P3 Linux machine. Of course there is more value to it than that, as two 128MB PC100 DIMMs aren't "cheap" like they used to be.
Pentium II RAM
It's "unlikely" (Not impossible, but unlikely) your Pentium II takes EDO. They made "a few" Pentium IIs (mostly 233/266Mhz ones) using the old 440FX chipset that took EDO, but SDRAM is *far* more common. (Using either the 440LX or 440BX, depending on whether your PII is a 233-333Mhz or 350-450Mhz model.)
I'd *guaruntee* you that if the PII is 350Mhz or faster it's using SDRAM. If it's a slower model, well... borrow a DIMM from a Beige G3 or the like, if you have one around, and see if it physically fits.
The only non-laptop EDO-taking PII I've ever seen was an ancient 440FX Dell machine, and it actually took SIMMs, not DIMMs. Yipe. I scavenged its CPU and still have it in a junkbox somewhere...
--Peace
thanks
I will check those numbers on the motherboard when I get a chance. Probably best to post a photo as well.