Why can't I use X with 32MB of Ram?!?!?!

[repoman1879 0]

system specs:

celeron 333a

32mb sdram

i810e integrated graphics & sound.

Distro = Mandrake 9.0

 

when i tried startx at the console, I get an EE error claiming that only 6MB is available for AGP and it's not enough to start X in any available video mode.

 

Why is it that win95 can do it (even though it's slow n crappy?)

 

What is the smallest distro that will support X with 32MB of ram & integrated video + sound ?

 

I was planning on using this for a car mp3/ogg player juke box.

 

thanks,

 

--New to Linux.

[clutch 1]

That's an issue with your distro (Mandrake), and not with Linux in general. There are several (many actually) options to choose from, but I use Debian myself as there is a small memory and harddrive footprint from it. The installation is definately not the easiest, but once it's running it's the easiest to get applications and updates for using apt-get. I would suggest hitting www.debianhelp.org, www.debian.org, and www.debianplanet.com for information, and maybe trying google for specifics on your hardware.

[punkisdead 0]

That would actually be your onboard graphics card, since it does not have ram of its own, the motherboard will allocate a specified amount of ram from the first ram module for video. Which in your case is only 6MB. Try an older distro of Mandrake or Redhat and you shouldn't have an issue.

[Admiral LSD 0]

I can't see why the issue exists in the first place tbph...

 

6Mb of RAM will get you 1024x768 @ 24 bit colour easily (you only need 4Mb for that really) so why is X complaining?

[GhostSong 0]

Within XF86conf there's a question about the shared mem ? Or something

 

like that , which X will use not sure cause i dont remember , it's

 

been a while since i was dealing with mandrake9.0 probs , ahm focused

 

in Suse 8.1 pro now so i cant be more helpful to you and ahm sorry ,,, try to get in kb the

 

total size of your vga's mem and see what happens

 

 

Farewell

[GhostSong 0]

I guess ahm sure it's that the solution cause i went through there

 

I was forced to get the newest XFree86ver though and within the XF86Conf i used max or 0 of the vga's mem and worked.*

 

*You know where you choose keyb mouse bla bla vga bla bla hz khz etc

 

Farewell