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Joined: Aug 13, 2008
Posts: 18
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Posted Oct 02, 2008 at 3:28:59 AM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
I've got an old machine with no ethernet port, and I've got some sort of adapter with a serial port on one end and an ethernet plug on the other. What distro would best recognize this hardware, and would it run well on OLD machines.

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Joined Jul 26, 2008
Posts: 703
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Posted: Oct 02, 2008 6:47:36 AM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
I would burn a Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux Live cd and try both out in live mode to see if it will work. Deli Linux is another option. I am guessing as you have given no specs, machine and model number, and old machine is an opinion depending on user. I have internet access on a Compaq Armada 1540DM Pentium 1, 80 mb ram, 1.7 gig hard drive using Damn Small Linux 4.0. I also installed Puppy 2.15CE on it and it was also internet accessible but ran slower than DSL. Hence the switch.

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zsporing

Joined Aug 13, 2008
Posts: 18

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Posted: Oct 02, 2008 4:59:42 PM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
The machine is a thinkpad running 98, Pentium 2 processor, 6 gig hard drive, half gig of ram.

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Joined Jul 26, 2008
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Posted: Oct 02, 2008 9:42:37 PM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
Both Distros I mentioned earlier will run fine on your machine. I would go with Puppy as you have plenty of ram to handle it. Like I said, for the price of 1 cdrw or 2 cdr you can download and burn them and try them out.

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Glock24
Joined Aug 31, 2008
Posts: 42

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Posted: Oct 07, 2008 5:40:34 AM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
[quote=zsporing]The machine is a thinkpad running 98, Pentium 2 processor, 6 gig hard drive, half gig of ram.[/quote] With 512MB of RAM, you could very well run a less barebones distribution, like Xubuntu, or even Debian. As for the ethernet adapter, what model/brand is it? can you post a picture of it? It is possible that it is just a "normal" internal network card with a custom connector to improve portability.
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zsporing

Joined Aug 13, 2008
Posts: 18

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Posted: Oct 08, 2008 3:48:49 AM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
Yeah, about puppy, I booted it once, and running in ram it was pretty slow, so I turned it off to try a different X server. Now when I boot it off the same disc, it only displays "ISOLINUX 3....." Other machines boot fine off of this disc. Why is this?

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craig/asux
Joined Jun 12, 2008
Posts: 97
Location:sydney

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Posted: Nov 16, 2008 6:56:39 PM
Subject: Ethernet Through Serial Port
ubuntu starter kit .then go from there .
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