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HowTo: Install Fedora 19 on old; low on memory, machines!

Ok, when I say "low on memory", I mean less than 512 MB of RAM. My particular installation was on an old Dell; with ~384 MB of RAM.

Yep, it will take long. Yep, you will suffer. Yep, it works fine!

So, first of all, get Fedora's LXDE live CD: http://spins.fedoraproject.org/lxde/

Now, boot it. I hope it does. I switched to tty2 by pressing:

<ctrl> + <alt> + <F2>

This way, you don't waste precious resources on opening a lx-terminal. Also, remember; you have vi; no vim available.

To make things easier, just create a swap partition and activate it:

# nuke it!
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda bs=2048 count=1

# reload the partitions.
# I actually don't know if this is possible; I need confirmation on a comment from someone.
# You might actually need to reboot.
partprobe

# fdisk it and create a 1 GB partition
fdisk /dev/sda

# make it a swap
mkswap /dev/sda1

# activate it
swapon /dev/sda1

If installation fails (it failed a few times for me because the CD-ROM sucked!), just reboot. Fedora is smart enough to activate that swap partition on it's own.

<del datetime="2013-09-26T04:41:01+00:00">Now, you need to modify anaconda; which is located on /usr/sbin/anaconda.</del>

Ok, it's good to be wrong sometimes; just hit the <tab> key when the livecd prompts and add nomemcheck. The reference is here: <a href="https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda_Boot_Options?rd=Anaconda/Options#nomemcheck">https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Anaconda_Boot_Options?rd=Anaconda/Options#nomemcheck</a>

Now, switch back to tty1 (graphical console) by pressing:

<ctrl> + <alt> + <F2>

Now, wait until the CPU is done doing stuff. Then, place the mouse on top of the installation icon and make the most precise, ashured and definitive double-click you've made in your life. Don't go on clicking 20 times cause your computer is going to crash for sure.

I did these steps like 5 times before it worked. Who knows why.

Now, a word of advice. Don't go happy pointer on the anaconda graphical interface. Be slow and accurate. Think, then, click. Every click counts a lot.

When installation started, it worked the first time.

Let me know your success stories, please!

p.s. I hate the guy that put me through this... damn him for being so poor!