I came across this: http://obfusc.at/ed/dclinux.html I am wondering if it is suitable for a machine with 512 MB of Ram and what sort of projects I'd be able to run on it.

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Thank you for your detailed reply. I played with linux some but am no expert. What you say makes sense, I am probably better served as you say by doing a straight install of a distro and run boinc on it, I've become impartial to linux mint at the moment. Unfortunately Ubuntu is not what it was or rather its GUI is not, apparently any resemblance to windows drives them to change things I got quite a shock when i tried to use it last and was advised to try mint. My hope was to avoid a HDD to save power, maybe I can pickup a cheap SSD of ebay

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I think mint is gnome, I think Ubuntu (or rather the company that owns it) ditched it's gnome interface and they are trying to put a new one together. Apparently menu's are old hat, and so it is perfectly normal that I need to go searching for my programs like a lost file.

Yes I do need to take a look at the pc in question and see if it will boot from a usb device, I need to find the motherboard details and see what it's got, it currently has 128 MB of ram on it (My sisters pc was able to run windows and boinc on 128 MB) but I can upgrade that to 512 as I have an old server that I've decided is not worth trying to get going so can take 2 of it's 256 MB modules for this other pc

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I am not sure how old Lenny

It's old-stable. This February lenny is off security-support.

is but it might provide an older BOINC version, I am guessing around version 6.10.58 which was and still is a good version that may serve you well for a long time.

It's squeeze what's bearing 6.10.58. The boinc of lenny is 6.2.14

DCLinux might not provide an OS update so you would be stuck updating the OS yourself.

Some believe it would be easier to just build it yourself. You (not *you*, but you, who's building) have to learn anyway.

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I'm counting for science,
points just make me sick.

well I am installing linux mint now and will see how I get on, at least it is a usable system for other than boinc. I'm using a laptop hard drive I remembered I had.

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well I'm pretty pleased, running linux mint (debian branch) with PC100 ram @ 133 MHz, needs 14 hours to finish task

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hm sounds like DC linux is an old project that has been left, I found it while looking for a portable version of boinc for windows, which has been discontinued and apparently does not work either.

I'm not techy enough to boot from lans etc, and this motherboard does not have a boot from USB option as you suggested may be the case. It can boot from a USB floppy drive though so perhaps there is hope ? I don't mind leaving the current HDD in place.

I was having some wild idea about having a low power PC running off solar panels with a buffer battery but that is probably a discussion for my usual electronics forum

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It can boot from a USB floppy drive though so perhaps there is hope ?

Then you probably have an option. Difference between USB-HDD and USB-FDD could mean BIOS can't handle partition table on USB stick (what looks default configuration today). Your image must lend on USB stick starting with block #0. But I don't know the source, thus I can't say exact arguments for dd command to start reading the image from right block. Anyway, somewhere near the place you've got your live-image there could be instructions how to do it.

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I'm counting for science,
points just make me sick.

Hello.... 1st blog for me in this forum. I have many questions, but i'll start with two.
I have 4 old(er) very reliable eMachines (e500,e533,e566's) that are currently running XP-Boinc. I had two laptops donated to the "cause" both with failed HDDs and so I got into Linux/Ubun bootable flashes running (flawlessly) with DotschUX-BOINC application. Took a lot to unravel a new language & Dotsch error corrections (still newbee) but all is running well.

My 1st QUESTION IS: If i boot off a Dotsch CD with "persistant" and a formatted/Dotsch/BOINC installed 4gig flash on an eMachine that does NOT recognize flash boot, WILL Dotsch-BOINC automatically store BOINC I/O work units on the flash??
My experience has been that if the boot comes frm the CD, nothing appears to happen, like flash being accessed, for anything after boot routine.
I thought "persistant" stored the check points/finished wu's on the flash?? Could u clarify b4 i have to "invent" a bunch of new computer names (BOINC recognition).

My 2nd QUESTION IS: If response to question #1 is YES, SHOULD i bother to copy the XP-BOINC files/data to that flash drive or should i just name the flash "e566-1" for BOINC recognition purposes and let the "e566" name "die"? (Would, of course, let it die after last work was finished and transmitted to WCG).
[P.S. WCG shows i have EIGHTEEN machine names, 7 of which were failed machines/HDDs/etc !!]
Much appreciated,
ol43

Thank you very much. I will continue to research.

Thank you very much. I will continue to research.