Anybody use Linux? For old hardware, which distro?
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From: Frank Steinmetzger on 2 Jun 2010 18:15 RayLopez99 wrote: > On Jun 2, 4:32 pm, David Brown <da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com> > wrote: >> On 02/06/2010 14:36, RayLopez99 wrote: >> >> > Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a >> > Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM >> > (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of >> > Linux. >> >> I take it you mean 512 MB ram? Otherwise the machine could barely run >> DOS... >> > > Yes, it was 512 MB ram. Or it may be 256 MB. In any event, it's > enough to run Windows XP, which is pretty demanding, so Linux should > (I hope) run fine...but which distro? I could run Gentoo with KDE 3 on a Pentium III with 256 MB. KDE 3 took ~120MB after boot (that's half of Windows XP) but it was not very fluid. And no, I'm not suggesting to install Gentoo on your friend's laptop. ;-) So RAM may not be a big problem here, but speed definitely is. You also said your friend doesn't even know what a USB stick was, so I gather she is not very computer-literate. This yields to the following criteria: - you need a small, fast graphical environment (such as LXDE or XFCE) - you can't necessarily use something much simpler, like Openbox, for it doesn't provide much of a modern desktop "user experience" with today's conveniences - you need something that is easy to use and manage I don't have personal experience with it, but my conclusion would reveal something like Xubuntu (that's Ubuntu but with Xfce instead of Gnome). Oh and something else: having everything on Google servers does not save you from needing to process it. Had I to chose between an office suite and a javascript-based web application on a 90 MHz CPU, I'd go for native machine code, it's just faster and may need less memory. Also, laptops from that time don't have much screen resolution (I'd guess it has 800x600 at most), which is another point against the browser way. OpenOffice could not be the ultimate answer here. There are smaller things available, such as AbiWord or Gnumeric. -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla' Mozart ging nach Wien, dort heiratete er und wurde arm.
From: David Brown on 2 Jun 2010 19:07 RayLopez99 wrote: > On Jun 2, 4:32 pm, David Brown <da...(a)westcontrol.removethisbit.com> > wrote: >> On 02/06/2010 14:36, RayLopez99 wrote: >> >>> Thinking of using on an old 1998 laptop PC that presently has a >>> Pentium II, with a built in generic Dell modem, USB mouse, 512k RAM >>> (!), DVD/CD, running Windows XP fine now (very slow), some distro of >>> Linux. >> I take it you mean 512 MB ram? Otherwise the machine could barely run >> DOS... >> > > Yes, it was 512 MB ram. Or it may be 256 MB. In any event, it's > enough to run Windows XP, which is pretty demanding, so Linux should > (I hope) run fine...but which distro? > > BTW it has a 100 GB hard drive. > You can run a lot of Linux standard distros in 512 MB, although you'll want to turn off desktop effects since you probably have a slow graphics card. If it is 256 MB (which is quite likely from that era), it gets a little harder - you should actively avoid the big desktops (Gnome and KDE) and larger apps. It will still work, if you've got a decent swap disk, but it will be /slow/ at startup. >> Have you looked atwww.distrowatch.org? They have lists of distros in >> various categories, including those for small systems. > > Where? I looked at the home page. Can you point me to where I can > find a search engine there to enter parameters such as HD, RAM, etc? > Go to the search page, and choose "Old computers" as the category. <http://distrowatch.com/search.php?category=Old+computers&origin=All&basedon=All&desktop=All&architecture=All&status=Active> Try <http://lubuntu.net/> - get the live cd and give it a shot. Note that live cd's suffer more from lack of ram than hard disk installations, since they suffer more if they don't have the space to cache files, and all files written must be stored in a ram disk. Another good choice would be the LXDE variation of Mint <http://www.linuxmint.com/release.php?id=13>. It's currently only a release candidate for the latest Mint version (Mint 9), so you can either try that or get the Mint 8 version. Mint is much like Ubuntu, but greener :-) It also has out-of-the-box codecs and other unfree but useful software.
From: John Hasler on 3 Jun 2010 09:34 The Natural Philosopher writes: > If you want plug and play handholding and everything made easy for > you, Linux may not be waht you want. You have to get out of that whiny > I paid, make it work for me' mindset from Redmond. No he doesn't. Paid support is readily available. I think most people would charge double for him, though. He's probably better of sticking with Windows. Microsoft is used to dealing with dorks. -- John Hasler jhasler(a)newsguy.com Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI USA
From: John Hasler on 3 Jun 2010 10:19 I wrote: > Paid support [for Linux] is readily available. The Natural Philosopher writes: > Ah, but he will say it costs more than using windoze. Then he should stay with Windows (which he will, of course: he's just a troll). -- John Hasler jhasler(a)newsguy.com Dancing Horse Hill Elmwood, WI USA
From: The Natural Philosopher on 3 Jun 2010 10:32
John Hasler wrote: > I wrote: >> Paid support [for Linux] is readily available. > > The Natural Philosopher writes: >> Ah, but he will say it costs more than using windoze. > > Then he should stay with Windows (which he will, of course: he's just a > troll). Not sure he can even run windows. He certainly seems to feel that typing things in boxes is too much for even a 'power windows user Who Can Program' . :-) Anyway, its clear he likes to find peiople who are enthusiastic advocates of Linux. Missed out here. I just use it, love it and don't want to change. Almost don't want the rest of the world using it, as then people would start trying to write viruses for it... I guess Ray is one of those people who likes to be part of a big crowd, and feel like he is a winner because he made the same brand choice as anyone else. Hence all this carp about 'which distro?' as if it really mattered. His mistake is in thinking the rest of the world is like him. Anyway, enough troll baiting. Time to do something more productive with this machine. I think I'll design a nuclear power station ;-) |