I am installing DSL to an old computer. It works fine until I tell it to install the boot loader. Then the installer crashes. (If it makes a difference I had to use the boot modifier "dsl vga=normal" in order to get it to boot properly)
I'm not good enough to help w/ what you've supplied n don't know if I could even if you did suppply enough info... Have you tried puppy linux?
(below is obviously copy n pasted, something I thought u should check out.)
What is Puppy Linux?
Puppy Linux is an operating system for computers. Other well-known operating systems are Microsoft Windows, Apple OSX, and MS-DOS. Puppy Linux is based on GNU/Linux. It is completely free and open source software.
How is Puppy Different?
- Small size, ~100MB! This lends itself to some very useful and unique features.
- 'Live' booting from CDs, DVDs, USB flash drives, and other portable media.
- Runs from RAM, making it unusually fast even in old PCs and in netbooks with solid state storage media.
- Very low minimum system requirements.
- Boot time is well under a minute, 30-40 seconds in most systems.
- Includes a wide range of applications: wordprocessors, spreadsheets, internet browsers, games, image editors and many utilities. Extra software in the form of dotpets. There is a GUI Puppy Software Installer included.
- Puppy is easy to use and little technical knowledge is assumed. Most hardware is automatically detected.
What are Puppy's Goals?
The Puppy Linux goals (adapted from Barry Kauler) are:
- Puppy will easily install to USB, Zip, hard drive or other storage media.
- Booting from CD (or DVD), Puppy can load itself totally into RAM so that the CD (DVD) drive is then free for other purposes.
- Booting from DVD (or CD), Puppy can save all work to the DVD (CD).
- Booting from USB flash drive (or other flash media), Puppy will minimize writes to extend its life.
- Puppy will be extremely friendly for Linux newbies.
- Puppy will boot up and run extraordinarily fast.
- Puppy will have all the applications needed for daily use.
- Puppy will just work, no hassles.
- Puppy will breathe new life into old PCs.
- Puppy will load and run totally in RAM for diskless thin stations.
How is Puppy organized?
The community is marked by openness and flexibility, and gets organized around goals. Barry Kauler is the founder and chief developer who leads the development of official releases. More recently, Community Editions (called "CE" versions) are created by teams. Projects are run by individuals or groups and posted/discussed in the Forum.
On my dau's old emachines 1300 I tried Puppy Linux but it froze once or twice. Kolabri also froze but LXLE worked great. I would say try several small Linuxes and see which one works best.
The reason I say this is cause small Linuxes don't have the wide user and developer base of Mint or the bigger names so they don't get the bug fixes that come along with various hardware.
Fav small browser is Links 2, Basically a lynx(text only browser) with pics but no adds.
YouTube videos would noy play in any browser but would play on a light youtube player
crunchbang ++ ? or is that a bit to big I am not the most well versed in this but I heard it is tiny, LXLE is also a really really slimmed down distro
Once you have DSL installed you could try installing the bootloader from another distro (like puppy which has multiple bootloader installation options on the iso[or at least it had last I used it]).