I decided to try installing Linux on my Compaq Presario 1240 over my Christmas vacation and over some extra snow days I had last week. First I installed a 64-MB RAM chip to bump it up to its maximum RAM and installed a larger hard drive, both leftover pieces from an old laptop of my dad’s. I tried a few different distros and finally ended up doing a minimal install of Debian and then adding components known for their lightweigtness (e.g., Openbox, idesk, fbpanel, etc.). It seems to be working pretty well so far. I haven’t been able to get sound working yet, which I’m not terribly worried about, but what I really hate is not being able to connect to the internet via my Linksys PCM100H1 PC card and over HPNA. The Ethernet part of the card works just fine when I plug it directly into the router, but it won’t work reliably with the HPNA connection. It will work for a while, but then the connection will die. A reboot will get it working again, but of course only for a while. I use an HPNA 2.0 bridge plugged into a router for the HPNA network, and I’m wondering if this might be the issue (not being HPNA 1.0 like the adapter in use). I’ve turned up little information on the web. It would be nice to find a way to solve the problem without having to buy different equipment to try. *sigh*

When I got my 1240, it had 98 installed on it, and it handled that… well, about as well as anything handles ’98, I suppose. It wasn’t a real strain on the hardware, anyway. The only major hardware problem is that, like your 1800, the battery is completely dead.

I had tried a few micro distros of Linux, and DSL was the only one that was small enough for the machine to handle. I’m actually impressed to see the distros you’ve attempted on that thing!

Ultimately, I ended up invoking my own personal nostalgia, and installed FreeDOS on it. It works like a charm! It’s actually quite liberating to have a machine without a GUI– or even internet, for that matter.* I turn it on, play games, mess around with FDconfig.sys and autoexec.bat, write a bit, then play some more games. It’s a nice little escape from my XP machines.

* FreeDOS does have a single-task GUI (OpenGEM) and net support, but both are just a bit too much hassle to bother with.

Hi, I have a compaq presario 1240 with 64mb of ram. I am trying to install some kind of linux as a project and learning curve. At present i am trying Mandriva 2007 with Icewm , it installs fine but then after install it hangs on boot ,some fault with kernel. Anyway back to the drawing board.
Like the blog keep it up.

To get video working for me, I use VGA=788 as a boot parameter.

i just installed DSL on my compaq presario 1240 that was sitting in a junk pile in my garage….

it works alot better than the windows Me that i DBAN’d out of the hardrive awhile ago…

but your blog helped me with the install. i was getting the distorted crazy colors when booting off of the DSL live cd….. had to press F2 and change boot: fb800x600 along with xfbdev option for the boot.

but now i either need to find a wireless card that works with dinosaur box’s or a free dial-up ISP to get this thing on the net lol.

but thanks- great post.

Good day!

I have a presario like this one.
The DSL is working nice, but the wine…
It didn’t work. So, I think I will throw this shitbook away.

Just noticed that your message board is modifying the modprobe string. Here it is in code brackets:
sudo modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=0 mpu_io=0x330

When I got my Presario 1240 it had a BIOS password from the previous user which stopped me booting an O/S, let alone getting into the BIOS! I dismantled it and removed the battery for 25 minutes and the password is now cleared but, whenever I reboot it, the clock returns to 00:00 in 1988. Bizarrely, other BIOS settings stick fine, so it’s not a flat battery.
Anyway, as a result, whenever I boot, the machine spews an error (invalid clock or something) and gives me two options: F1 to continue booting, or F10 to enter BIOS.
So, for me, F10 opens the BIOS. For you? I don’t know. :)

Thanks Toby! I actually moved on and installed several other systems on this machine after that. I briefly had it running Slax, then Fluxbuntu and now it is running Ubuntu Lite. I’m planning to mess around with it some more and install something more hard core – perhaps Crux or Gentoo at some point and see if I can get better performance. :)

Btw, how did you get into BIOS on that Compaq machine? I tried pressing just about everything on the keyboard during the bootup sequence and I couldn’t get in.

Thank you for the xvesa tips which helped me get up and running.

To enable sound in Damn Small Linux (DSL) on a Compaq Presario 1240 you will need to use the command:

sudo modprobe sb io=0x220 irq=5 dma=1 dma16=0 mpu_io=0x330

…where the values after sb correspond with the values you see in your bios.
I now have mine installed to the HD, customised, on my LAN, and streaming web radio through the in-built JBL speakers. :)