The “cheap” and “easy” way in about an hour! A question that pop’s up from time to time is “I somehow ended up with an archaic old laptop / computer, can it run Linux?” Well of course it can, but that totally depends! On what? Well machine CPU, CPU speed, hard disk space, RAM and most importantly what you are expecting it to do.

Okay, why a Intel 386? Well number one I own a 386, but more importantly its the absolute bottom Intel CPU you can run Linux on. While it wont be able to do much, it will give you a basic system to kick around and “get to know” the insides of Linux without a million things installed and the worry of breaking it.

Unfortunately a 386 requires some special moves as the actual chip was dropped from almost all distributions long ago. All of the modern distributions I have looked at require at least a 486 CPU. This tutorial will be strictly for installing a basic bare bones Linux on a 386. Have a 486? Pentium? Faster? Never fear I will be covering that in a part II later this week.

Linux on a 386 in about an hour? Madness you might think, it probably takes Linux longer to boot on a 386 (and in some cases you are correct)! Want to know the trick? Simple, cheat!

Join me after the break for the parts and steps needed to get you started.

First we need a target machine, here is mine. It is a DEC PC325SL, which translates out to intel386SL (which is a 386SX CPU in a highly integrated package where much of the support hardware is also inside the chip) running at 25Mhz with 4MB of ram and 120MB of hard disk space. It also has 256K video memory and 640×480 color VGA display. If you can swing it, a 386DX CPU or a 386S(X/L) with a 387 math co-processor is recommended, no it doesn’t really matter if its an Intel, AMD, etc. It also needs an IDE disk up to 2G, sorry MFM drives.

Next we need a distribution that will actually work with a 386 CPU. This is where it gets to be confusing. Everyone still has a distribution called i386, but support for the 386 was dropped a while ago. I looked at some of my favorites, Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD, and NetBSD (which I know are not Linux but hey.) Here is what I found out:

Debian stopped support with 3 so anything earlier is ok.

Slackware stopped around the same time in release 9.

FreeBSD states that it requires a 386DX, but then says most 386 laptops are ok via math emulation, but in a more current readme it states that you need a 486 (confused?)

NetBSD says it should work on all 386′s but I never made it that far.

Well of course I am not a super Linux guru, and can really only futz around without running off to a forum or a book, so I went with Debian. Originally version 2.2 as it was the newest version that machine could run, and yes in fact it did. The problem is it took over an hour to boot with a year 2000 generic kernel and when it finally did it refused to move past the package installer.

You could spend a lot of time trimming and optimizing to get it running great, but I am facing a brutal truth here, and that is the best I could run is still over a decade out of date and its going to require a lot of work. So I just simply stepped back in time a bit further to find something a bit more appropriate.

In the end I used Debian 1.3.1, which is a mid 1990′s Linux, and that’s really the point. Use whatever you like but its going to have to be pretty old or require a ton of work, which at that point you might be better off doing it from scratch.

Tools for the cheat install:

x86 compatible Host PC with an IDE/ATA port, and a standard BIOS capable of booting into DOS. I used my dual core AMD A2X2 with a nvidia chip-set so its pretty safe to say most PC’s will. It also needs an Internet connection and some form of Linux installed or booted (I use mint)

CD ROM or USB stick you can boot from with a windows 98 emergency boot disk (EBD from here on), or since MS DOS does not know how to access USB or SATA CD ROM’s, I used a old IDE drive with a 100Mb FAT16 partition on it.

IDE to 3.5 IDE pin adapter, they are cheap and handy I suggest you have one, just make sure you plug it in correctly you can kill your drive (as in magic smoke kill).

That should do it, lets get started

Step One:

Turn off your Host PC, plug in a spare IDE hard disk set as slave. To keep my self from borking my computers main drive I went ahead and unplugged it from the SATA port. Check BIOS to make sure its detected and that you are booting from your CD drive first, Insert the Windows EBD save changes and let the computer boot from the EBD.

You will see a Windows boot disk menu, choose to “start without cd rom support”. Once at the DOS prompt use FDISK to setup a 100 or so meg partition, be sure to tell FDISK no when it asks you if you want large disk support to ensure a FAT16 partition.

Exit FDISK, reboot with the EBD and use FORMAT C: (make sure that is the correct drive if you have others plugged into the system), then Eject the EBD. In my case I then plugged my SATA hard drive back in and set BIOS to boot from that disk and went on into Linux Mint, though you could leave your main drive unattached and use a live CD Linux.

I know that linux can make a FAT16 partition. I was having trouble with the EBD reading it while figuring this all out, so I just started making the partition with the OS that really needs it most.

Step Two:

Boot your Host PC into Linux, I am using (again) Linux Mint but It does not matter, it just has to be able to get on line, and mount a FAT16 partition. Point your web browser to the Debian archive and goto the following folder Debian-1.3.1/main/disks-i386/1997-10-13/

Download the following files

base1_3.tgz

resc1440.bin

drv1440.bin

linux

loadlin.exe

root.bin

and copy them to your FAT16 partition.

Optional Step:

My 386 came with 120 meg disk, That might be large enough to squeeze a basic Linux system on, but I also wanted a little room for a MS DOS partition so I upgraded to a 540 meg hard drive. Of course 386′s and other <1994 machines have a bios limitation of 1024 cylinders limiting the drive to 500 megs. This computer is even more picky limiting my choices down to 2 DEC approved drives, the 120 meg or a 240 meg (probably sold as an option). In order to use this drive so that both DOS and Linux can live happily on it, I must use a drive overlay (ick). So far I have been avoiding the use of floppies, but I do have floppies, and the drive on the machine works fine.

I found a old copy of Western Digital EZ Drive 9.03, I also used a MS-DOS6.22 boot floppy image. EZ drive is simple but even if you do not want a DOS partition, you HAVE to have one or else EZ drive will scream “no boot partition” and halt. So make at least 1 MSDOS partition at the start of the drive, even if its only a megabyte in size.

Step 3:

Remove the hard disk from the 386 and attach it to your host PC, it should be MASTER on Channel 0 and the drive with the FAT16 partition we put the install files on. should be the SLAVE on Channel 0. Enter your PC bios and find your 386′s drive, and be sure to turn off LBA. If you are using a drive overlay set your bios where it boots from the 386 drive first.

Reboot the Host PC (I disconnected my main drive for now as well), if you are using a drive overlay let it boot the hard disk first, then tell the overlay to boot from drive A, insert your Windows EBD into your CD drive and it will eventually load. If you are not using an overlay just boot from the Windows EBD. When you come up to the EBD boot menu use the arrow keys to stop the timer, then hold SHIFT and press F5 which will just dump you directly to a command prompt.

Find the drive with the linux install files on it and run:

loadlin linux root=/dev/ram initrd=root.bin

The debian installer should fire right up, follow the menus until you come to the disk partitioner. Create 2 partitions, 1 as type 82 (linux swap) at about 16-32 megs big, and the other should be set up as you like as your space. I just used the remainder of the disk and it defaulted to a linux type. Write the changes and continue on with the installer. Also be sure to use the right disk, it should be /dev/hda

The installer should continue and eventually ask you to install lilo, which is fine on the MBR, then reboot. Remove any disks still left in the Host PC and Debian should start. Now you have to go though another round of configuration questions. Eventually you will get to the dselect package manager (which I hate). Once you figure out how to exit dselect you should still be root. Type in halt and the system should start shutting down, if you are logged into your user account you need to use su and enter the root password first to halt the machine.

Step 4:

Once everything is down, remove your 386 drive from the Host PC and place it back into the 386, with a little luck it should start up just fine. Though there is nothing but the bare basics installed, there is still a ton of stuff to check out and poke around through. Outside of reading this and getting everything prepared it should take about an hour.

Getting software packages into the machine, right now I am just downloading the deb files from the Debian archive on my mac and coping them over via floppy disks. Another option would be to use minicom and a null modem cable. If you are really lucky you can get networking going. I downloaded the entire binary-i386 folder for Debian 1.3.1 and its about 400MB, and while I am not trying to load the machine up, some things like a menu driven text editor (fte) and mouse support are nice.

Have fun and be sure to tune in for part II which involves my 8MB Pentium 90 laptop for linux after 386, you might find it surprising.