Help with Win3.11

[IFMU]

Ok, heres the deal, I finally found my old Windows 3.11 OS. I have an older HDD that I want to install it on. Its a 300Mhz Celery I think 64 ram, major overkill for 3.11. But the only HDD I have that I can use on it is a 600meg. So in turn 95 or newer wont fit. I am prolly going to install 3.11 on it. Ive never really installed 3.11 by myself. I know how to install it. I do have dos disks to install first. Now what would everyone suggest that I do with this? It will be far from a great system. I was thinking of using it as a Seti@home or folding@home. But havent decided exactly. It will be my second pos system running for anyone that comes over and wants to get online. Im looking for any suggestions, hardware firewall? Just an @home setup? What programs are out there that I could use on it? Anyone know of any chat proggies that I can still use on it?

And another thing, how do you install drivers on it? How do you set it up for Lan Access? Never done it with 3.11. Basiclly I need to know everything! I dont know much other than how to use it.

Thanks for any and ALL suggestions!!!


IFMU

[nihili]

To be honest, I'd install Linux before I'd install W3.1. 3.1 was a real dog of an OS. Since you'll be learning a new OS anyway, why not learn something current and marginally useful? Either that or find a 1 gig drive somewhere and go with W2K. For what it's worth Pricewatch has 1gig IDE for about 20 plus shipping.

nihili

[IFMU]

Yea Ive thought about that, but I dont have the money to go get any new hardware. so buying anything is outta the question. And as far as Linux goes, I am at an utter loss using it, Ive tried it a couple of times, RedHat and even Mandrake, couldnt figure the first thing about it...

[nihili]

Originally posted by ifmu
Yea Ive thought about that, but I dont have the money to go get any new hardware. so buying anything is outta the question. And as far as Linux goes, I am at an utter loss using it, Ive tried it a couple of times, RedHat and even Mandrake, couldnt figure the first thing about it...

I've had the same luck with Linux. But that was my experience with 3.1 too. I was never able to grok the system. I do fine with windows95+, macintosh, dos and most flavors of straight unix. I don't "get" Win3.1, VMS, or Linux. Don't ask me why I get Unix but not Linux, I haven't a clue.

nihili

[RED Hot Machine]

Originally posted by ifmu
Ok, heres the deal, I finally found my old Windows 3.11 OS. I have an older HDD that I want to install it on. Its a 300Mhz Celery I think 64 ram, major overkill for 3.11. But the only HDD I have that I can use on it is a 600meg. So in turn 95 or newer wont fit. I am prolly going to install 3.11 on it. Ive never really installed 3.11 by myself. I know how to install it. I do have dos disks to install first. Now what would everyone suggest that I do with this? It will be far from a great system. I was thinking of using it as a Seti@home or folding@home. But havent decided exactly. It will be my second pos system running for anyone that comes over and wants to get online. Im looking for any suggestions, hardware firewall? Just an @home setup? What programs are out there that I could use on it? Anyone know of any chat proggies that I can still use on it?

And another thing, how do you install drivers on it? How do you set it up for Lan Access? Never done it with 3.11. Basiclly I need to know everything! I dont know much other than how to use it.

Thanks for any and ALL suggestions!!!


IFMU

If you do a minimuim install you should be able to put 95 on that drive. If it is only going to be used every now and then or just for seti etc, you could even doublespace the drive.

[eh?]

I agree with nihili, linux mandrake 8.1 is really east to use and understand. and i remeber right windows 3.1 was alot harder to use than linux....

[Jon]

NT 4.0 will only take up at most 250MB of space installed. Leaves you with over 300MB to work with if you don't plan on using it for much.

I've got a P133 with a 710MB harddrive, 48MB of EDO memory and I've run NT 4.0 on it for a couple years.

Just a thought...

[RED Hot Machine]

I had win95 & office 97 on a 800mb drive, running on a 386sx16 with 10mb of memory, it worked **ok**.

[Kingslayer]

I'll send you a two gig drive just to keep you from loading 3.11.....

[IFMU]

LoL.. dont like 3.1 that much do yea king? I didnt know that NT took up such little space.. Ill take a look into that... Thanks for all the help folks !!!

[nihili]

Yeah, I'm running W2K on a braindead install with folding and I'm only using 687 meg


nihili

[IFMU]

Ok how did you get 2k to do a partial install? Ive looked for that the million times Ive installed it and i cant find it any more...???

[nihili]

By braindead I mean everything at default. I just said yes to whatever it asked. Have you *tried* to install 2k on the 600 meg disk? I know that some versions of Linux will automatically install less stuff if you have a smaller disk. Perhaps W2k will also? I have no idea.

I will say that I'm very impressed with how well W2k runs on a P120. It's noticeably faster than Mandrake.

nihili

[IFMU]

No I havent tried to install 2k on it.. I figured that if 98 wouldnt fit neither would 2k, but they are different so I guess I can give it a try... I thought 2k had an option on what you installed on it... maybe it was just the beta3 version I had that had that option.. hhmm... ok well Im gonna try out 2k and if that wont work then NT4.0... but thanks for all the help folks... Ill let yea know how it goes... should be up tomorrow... Was gonna do it tonite but plans kinda interupted it...

[IFMU]

UPDATE!!!

HHmm... well I thought I had a 600 meg hdd... maybe that was one I tore apart some months ago?! But the only hdd I can find now is a 200meg?! sucky... hhmmm... So anyone know of any OS that would fit on that? Im doubting it... oh well... looks like to get my 3rd rig up I will have to buy another hdd... ggrrr... annoying.. oh well...

[IFMU]

Another Update... Well I just got it all together and was powering it up... poof... black smoke coming from the cable that went to the 3.5 drive... Played with it a lil to find out what was goin on... looks like the psu went bad.. Tried to take the rest with it... good thing the case wasnt on and I saw the smoke real quick and cut the power.... Might have fried the floppy, but nuthin else by the looks of it... granted got lucky, but if it did fry that floppy... gonna suck... the only one I own... ah well.. just another day in paradise...

[minoukat]

sorry for a "late" reply ! How come 95 doesn't fit on your 600MB ??? I installed Windows 98FE on a 500MB partition, and it only took up 200 +/- MB of disk space. Already installed Windows 95, several times, and the installation never took up more than 100 MB of disk space, sometimes even less than 60 MB. so win95 wouldN't be too big to fit on your hard disk, if your comp would still run ! :(

[JigPu]

All these 3.1 haters... And I thought it was relitivaly simple!

Well, with only 200MB, try to find a small Linux distro. I don't think Windows 95 could fit on such a small drive even with doublespace (SETI requires at least 95 BTW). Check with the people in the alternate OS section if they know of any good small linux distros.

JigPu

[Godfodda]

Something else I've not seen mentioned: I don't think you could even use 3.11 for browsing. The current state of the internet requires a fairly recent browser and I don't believe they work on that OS. I tried browsing with 3.1 on a 486 as recently as 2 yrs ago and it was pretty much a no go. IRC worked fine, though. :D

[minoukat]

Originally posted by Godfodda
Something else I've not seen mentioned: I don't think you could even use 3.11 for browsing. The current state of the internet requires a fairly recent browser and I don't believe they work on that OS. I tried browsing with 3.1 on a 486 as recently as 2 yrs ago and it was pretty much a no go. IRC worked fine, though. :D

I have Internet Explorer 2.01 on my Win3.1/486, don't use it cause I don't have my AOL account anymore, and don't have a NIC to connect to my network, but if I had a NIC, and enough $$$ for taking the cable up to my room (where this comp stays !), I'd do it, and it would work. And 95 would fit on 200MB if you don't do updates and other stuff, as if it's only for Seti, it would fit. At least windows 95 first version would, donno about OSR2 tho

[ThePunkGeek]

eheh just download beOS its like 50 mb i think

[m1066ad]

Yeah, but what can you DO with it?? With 98Lite, 98 will install with as little 192 MB taken up, AFTER installation, but it needs more than that, to install. I have a cd I made, with just the extracted 98Lite files, and just the 98 files it says it uses, and it installs great, very fast. I have seen Linux distros that fit on a couple of floppies! Found'em through Google, haven't tried'em, though. I'd think hardware compatibility would be a problem. I never could get linux to work halfway right, until recently, when the latest distros started to support more hardware. Never used Win 3.1, myself. I'd never touched a computer, until a couple of years ago. I can use a slide rule, though:D

[klosters64a]

I have a working 98SE installation on a 407 Mb HDD. After adding a few necessary(IMHO)progs, I have 39 Mb of free space-before the drive is 90% full. I have more RAM than the capacity of this HDD. Who'd a thunk it?

Edit. So now it's a 200 Mb HDD? Win 3.1 will fit on it, dunno about 3.11. Or, a Linux install with no GUI. Eep!

Win 3.1 ain't bad, but I'm told that Win 3.11 Windows For Work Groups(the first "NT") kinda bites.

If you installed Win 3.1, you'd need an all important patch so the OS can run 32 bit progs.

Modern Linux's are easy to install--just RTM.

[minoukat]

Originally posted by klosters64a
If you installed Win 3.1, you'd need an all important patch so the OS can run 32 bit progs.

What's the patch and where can it be found ?

[JigPu]

Hold on... I'm sure somebody knows it, but when I get done with the forums, I'll turn on my 386 and find it. I know I have some program on there that says it needs it...

Unless somebody responds first...
JigPu

[JigPu]

Well... Inspiration to the rescue! Only a minute, and I remeber the file!! WIN32S. Currently checking the net for downloads.

Please Stand By:
EDIT: http://archive.ncsa.uiuc.edu/SDG/Software/mosaic-w/faq/win32.html

:)
JigPu

[minoukat]

Thanks !!!!! I'll try it later today !