[TriLUG] Installing Debian Stable on old hardware

[Brian Henning]

Hi Folks,
  What's a bored geek do on a Christmas afternoon?  Try to get Debian
working on legacy hardware, that's what!  I've posted about this particular
hardware before..  It's a Fujitsu Stylistic 1000 tablet pc, with a 100MHz
486 core, 40MB ram and a 1GB microdrive for a hard drive.  Network
connectivity is supposed to be achieved with a Linksys NP100 Network
Everywhere PCMCIA card, and therein lies the rub.

I managed to get Slack 8.something installed on the thing using an NFS
mount, so I know the combination of system and pc card is a functional one
under at least some version of linux.  And I know the right module is the
axnet_cs module.  So anyhow, I don't have a CD-ROM for the bugger, so
network based install is the only option.  Oh, and it bears mention that I
am abandoning Slackware because Debian on this particular hardware seems to
be at least marginally documented.

I already tried a floppy-booted Sarge install.  I get tripped up at network
hardware detection.  Even though axnet_cs is listed in the options, after I
select it and the machine ponders for a while, it says it can't find the
network hardware (although the card services seems to be operating somewhat
normally).

So I've dropped back a version or two to Debian Stable.  I get past
initializing my hd partitions and installing the kernel and driver modules,
and up to the point where I'm supposed to choose my network driver.  The
problem is, axnet_cs isn't in the list.  pcnet_cs is in the list and is
supposed to work with an earlier Linksys card, but apparently doesn't work
for the newer card.  So how do I get axnet_cs on there during install so I
can do a network install?

Or, if a different version would be better for me to use, I am wide open to
suggestions.  I think I'd like to stick with Debian if possible, though.

Thanks y'all, and I hope everyone is having a very merry Christmas!

Regards,
~Brian Henning