Bootloader problems & compiling for older kernels

[Scott Elcomb]

Hi all,

I managed to acquire an ancient laptop in the last week for virtually
nothing.  The specs:

Make/Model: HyperBook 600 from Hyperdata
CPU: Pentium - 75Mhz
Ram: 24Mb
Hdd: 510Mb
Bios: AMIBIOS (1993)


Part 1 - Bootloaders

I've got Win95b and Basic Linux 3.5* loaded onto the hard drive, but I
can't seem to get either lilo or grub working properly:

- Lilo can load linux, can't find chain.b to load Win95.
- Grub can load Win95, but not linux (Error 17 - Can't mount partition)

I built a Grub boot floppy (which was used to install grub to the MBR)
and that works perfectly fine.  All my googling about the Error 17
problem suggests that Grub may not work properly with such an old Hdd
and BIOS.

Does anyone have recommendations for other bootloaders?


Part 2 - Compiling

Basic Linux is very tiny (designed specifically for old laptops) and
doesn't have much in the way of packages.  IMO, it does an absolutely
amazing job for fitting on two floppies.

I'd like to compile some software for it using my development
environment under Ubuntu Edgy.  Besides ensuring that I have the right
libraries, is there anything I need to watch out for - particularly as
far as kernel differences go?

My Edgy is using a 2.6.17 kernel, and Basic Linux is using a 2.2.16 (IIRC).

Thanks in advance!
- Scott.

* Basic Linux:
  http://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/baslinux/

-- 
Scott Elcomb  [ http://www.psema4.com/ ]

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