Install of RH 7.3 on "older" laptop
Duane Attaway
dattaway at attaway.net
Tue Aug 20 03:04:07 CDT 2002
On Mon, 19 Aug 2002, Chris Hoelscher wrote:
> Hi. Having some fun. I have an old Compaq LTE 5300 laptop laying
> around, and thought I'd try loading Red Had 7.3. All goes well (albeit
> a very "light" install on the 1.3 gig disk), and at the end of the
> install, I configure X for 800x600 with 16bit color. The test works
> o.k., so I think I'm in...
>
> After I reboot, however, when I try to 'startx', it crashes. The error
> log indicates not enough memory for any of the configured modes. The
> thing has 32 Meg of ram, and a 1 meg video card, what more could it
> want? ;)
>
> Am I just out of luck getting X up on a P-133 with 32 Meg ram? Or is
> there some secret that can be shared?
X likes to look for its configuration files in a variety of places. You
get to play a game of placing YOUR configuration file where X checks it
first. I believe the first place it checks is /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 or
something like that. The logs may show where it picks the configuration
file. Watch for that.
I have installed linux on a 4MB laptop, and have X to work well on a 486
with 16MB with a 1MB video card. I suspect redhat's latest distributions
are targeted for the latest computers.
You can always use xf86config to roll a custom set of screen settings of
various resolutions and color depths. Make sure you install it at the
first place X will look. If THAT doesn't work, you can always recompile X
to use minimal options. X these days has everything.
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