You have a few options:

• Download the latest ISO (x86 only) and boot as a live system
• Download the hard drive image file and boot as a pre-installed system
• Compile the kernel and root filesystem (any architecture) and boot into SnackLinux either in a virtual machine or on physical hardware.

SnackLinux supports most generic vintage hardware out of the box. If you require specific drivers, please compile your own custom kernel.

You can install SnackLinux from a live ISO image to a local hard drive by runnning /root/install-snacklinux.sh, or by booting from the hard drive img file (easiest).

If you are using vintage hardware and an IDE to Compact Flash adapter, you can simply dd the img file to your CF card.

 dd if=snacklinux_cf_i486_01.03.25.img of=/dev/sda4

Note for live install: you will need to setup networking and install dialog, ncurses and lilo with fbpkg

 fbpkg install dialog && fbpkg install ncurses && fbpkg install lilo
 bash install-snacklinux.sh /dev/hda
 

To set up networking, you can either use a static IP

ifconfig eth0 192.168.0.100 netmask 255.255.255.0
route add default gw 192.168.0.1 

or use udhcpc for DHCP. or create /etc/network/intefaces and use ifup eth0

touch /etc/network/intefaces

auto eth0
iface eth0 inet static
  address 192.168.1.X # Replace X with the specific IP address you want to assign to this device
  netmask 255.255.255.0
  gateway 192.168.1.1
  dns-nameservers 8.8.8.8 8.8.4.4

Run fbpkg update to update the latest packages list and to check if the network is up.

Install dropbear via fbpkg by running fbpkg install dropbear Then set up the keys:

mkdir /etc/dropbear && cd /etc/dropbear
dropbearkey -t rsa -f dropbear_rsa_host_key
dropbearkey -t ecdsa -f dropbear_ecdsa_host_key

Now run dropbear to start the dropbear SSH server.

To see the available packages, run fbpkg search mypackage.

Use fbpkg install <package> or fbpkg remove <package> for installation and removal. Run fbpkg –help for more information.

For compiling C/C++, install the essential tools:

 fbpkg install gcc
 fbpkg install make
 fbpkg install binutils
 fbpkg install m4
 # Other software that may be of value
 # tcc, ncurses, pkgconf, [[nim-lang|nim]]
 

Requirements: Built-in or ISA VGA video card

Graphics memory: 512KB tested, possibly works with 256KB

SnackLinux supports only the ISA bus and excludes any PCI-based devices including graphics cards. Most graphics drivers in the kernel (4.4) are aimed at PCI cards, so we are left with two choices: vga16fb or simpleframebuffer. The vesafb graphics driver only supports VESA 2.0+ cards, which do not encompass most ISA graphics cards (Cirrus GD54xx, Trident TVGA 8900/9000, Oak 067/077).

The SnackLinux kernel does not have built-in graphics support to save on size and allow booting with 8MB of RAM. Boot SnackLinux by selecting any VGA text mode on boot (Extlinux), you may encounter issues loading the appropriate kernel module if “VESA” is selected. To install linux-modules and load the appropriate modules:

fbpkg install linux-modules

modprobe vga16fb
fbset #confirm the current resolution
ls /dev/fb0 #confirm we have a framebuffer
modprobe mousedev #/dev/input/mice does not exist by default, this creates it
modprobe psmouse #for a PS/2 mouse
modprobe sermouse #for a serial mouse

Builds of MicroWindows 0.92 have been compiled but not ready for a full release. As a note, Microwindow looks for a mouse at /dev/mouse You can download the compiled packages here, extract to your local directory and run launcher.sh:

wget http://snacklinux.geekness.eu/repo/testing/microwindows-serial-mouse.tgz #for using a serial mouse. Create /dev/psaux or create a symbolic link to your mouse

wget http://snacklinux.geekness.eu/repo/testing/microwindows-0.92-bin-gpm.tgz #for using gpm
fbpkg install gpm

Work In Progress: builds of an updated and refactored MicroWindows 0.92: https://github.com/ghaerr/microwindows/tree/master Currently unable to run in 4bit mode, even with grayscale enabled.