CDROM boot error

[James Wilkinson]

Jack Taylor wrote:
> In attempting to upgrade from RH 6.2 to FC-4 from a CD on an AMD K5 100 MHz
> machine I get the following error on boot-up:

Kam Leo wrote:
> Check the hardware requirements for FC4. I believe they specify a
> minimum speed of 200 MHz.

To be honest, if Jack's not doing anything processor intensive, he'll
probably get away with it. Especially if he's just working in text mode.

The graphical side of Linux has come a long long way since that machine
was current, and a lot of it does depend on fast processors with a lot
of memory.

Much of the command line side hasn't changed that much, on the other
hand: it was pretty good back in the day, and the requirements haven't
changed that much. So the improvements are more incremental than a
complete radical change.

(I ran FC1 with 32 MB of memory on a K5 PR133 as a proxy server and mail
server -- no X. It wasn't impractical, although it did use the disk a
*lot*).

But that was on 2.4. Since then, text mode has had the 2.6 kernel, HAL,
and udev. None of them take up huge amounts of processor time, but they
do take up a lot more memory.

Which is one reason why this question is important:
> How much RAM does this box have?

A K5 would probably have 72 pin SIMMs. You might be able to get 4 16 MB
SIMMs for a total of 64 MB. You *might* even, if you're lucky, have more
than four SIMM slots (remember that they need to be installed in pairs),
or be able to get 32 MB SIMMs.

What chipset does the motherboard have? Any Intel chipsets (with the
exception of the 430 HX, and then only on some motherboards) would have
only cached up to 64 MB -- memory above that didn't get cached, which
slows things down even more. It also limits the size of memory modules
you can use, and the total amount of memory it can handle.

Don't think about FC4 with less than 64 MB of memory.

Also, don't expect this to be easy. The easiest way is probably to
install from scratch, and reconfigure (and possibly recompile) any
programs you want to use. Expect configuration files to have had syntax
changes.

What exactly *are* you using this computer for?

James.

-- 
E-mail address: james | "We've just been contacted by the Lady of the Lake."
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