Linux on older laptop

[Tony Gettig <tony@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi folks,

I just acquired a Toshiba laptop, the specs of which are (as best as I can
determine) P75, 8MB RAM, 500 MB HD. There's no CDROM. It currently has DOS
6.22 and WFW3.11 on it. I picked up a Linksys PCMCIA 10/100 NIC, which
Linux seems to recognize fine. I'm trying to install RH 6.2 (BSWare).

I've tried ftp install and nfs install, but to no avail. (BTW, where did
the install over Samba go?). By ftp, I enter the IP address for the laptop,
then the IP address and directory for the ftp server. It seems to find it
but freezes on "second stage install" into RAM disk. I let it set for 20
minutes, and there was no network activity. I could get to ther VC's
though. By nfs, it seems to go a little further, then it says something to
the effect of an unexpected error occurred and runs an orderly shutdown
very quickly.

Given the "RAM disk" hangup, my gut feeling is I don't have enough RAM to
continue. Any thoughts? Can I create a swap partition just for
installation? Will the install find it and use it? And is 8 MB enough to
run a minimal gui (XFCE) and perhaps Star Office? TIA.

Tony