Best linux distro for an old laptop

[baruch1]

Hi all,

I have an old T21 IBM thinkpad laptop. It has 256 MB ram and a pentium 3 with NO hard drive. It have not been able to boot it from a usb stick but it does have a cd rom. I am not sure I would want to boot it from usb anyways since it only has usb 1.0. I would like to turn it into a web surfing pc for my wife. She is very bored at home with the new baby. Anyways, I have tried several live distros with bad results and would like some people's input on this. I have tried the latest ubuntu, the latest fedora, puppy linux(4.3.1,5.0,5.2), and DSL. DSL, ubuntu, and fedora never boot. They start just fine in the beginning but eventually just come to a black screen. Puppy boots but eventually freezes. Essentially all I need is a distro that will support wireless networking, audio, and have a browser that allows for flash and javascript since the wifey must have her youtube. Please help if anyone can.

[henrikau]

Hi all,
hey start just fine in the beginning but eventually just come to a black screen. Puppy boots but eventually freezes. Essentially all I need is a distro that will support wireless networking, audio, and have a browser that allows for flash and javascript since the wifey must have her youtube. Please help if anyone can.

Well, first off: 256MB of memory and flash... are you *sure* you want to do this?

Secondly, just about any distro will do - the kernel is (more or less) the same, the real difference lies in how much extra they've added to the basesystem and windowmanager. At least the windowmanager bling can be configured away pretty easily.

Have you tried debian and fluxbox as window-manager?

[baruch1]

I must say I am not an expert but I could call myself a very seasoned veteran. I actually have flash running successfully on debian with a celeron with 96 megs of ram but it runs VERY VERY slow. I believe that if I run a light distro with only one window running maybe one tab of facebook and one of youtube that it should run "ok" and if that doesn't run ok then for sure just one youtube window should be fine. I am sure it won't be perfect but I think it will please my wife.

Regarding the distros aspect, if not much varies from one to the next then I need some help. I am not looking for features. I need stability even if it's without flash. That is to say if they all support the same hardware then I am just spinning my tires trying different distros. Could I be better served trying older distros. I read somewhere that the old 2.4 kernel supports more older hardware. Is there any truth to this?

[henrikau]

Well, I'm a big debian-fan, so I'd say debian will provide the stability you desire, and the package-manager is second to noone (as I'm sure all the other distros will claim).

However, debian *is* stable and reasonably light-weight.

I would not go for an older kernel. 2.4 supports a lot of hardware, but not as much as 2.6, the last 2 years have seen an *incredible* growth in the dirvers-section, and even if your laptop is dated, it is not *that* old. The same goes for distros - apart from the window-managers that just keeps on growing and claiming resources, the libraries and programs will be updated with the latest security- and bugfixes.

The performance of youtube has to be determined experimentally I guess, but I fear that you'll suffer from lags and whatnot. Also, with no hdd, you cannot swap either (which may be the reason why the system blacks out after a while).

[rokytnji]

AntiX 8.5 runs on my IBM A22m with 1000hz, 256MB ram, 20 gig HD with 700MB swap partiton with latest flash,java jre6_23, iceape 2.0.11,with debian testing repositories and fluxbox and Icewm desktops with conky. Dualboot it with Puppy 5.1.1 on a seperate 5 gig partition.

[baruch1]

I am also a big fan of debian. As I noted, on a desktop I have debian running with only 96 megs of ram and on my laptop I run debian with a flash audio player in a vmware virtual machine. However, as far as I can tell, Debian doesn't come available as a live cd like the other distros that I have mentioned. As far as the kernel issue goes, what I heard is that in the 2.6 kernel drops suuport for lot's of older hardware. I found the place where I read that support for some older hardware was being dropped. It is on DSL's site. I would link to it but apparently I don't have enough posts yet for external links. Instead here is that section quoted.

Will DSL ever use the 2.6 kernel? Has it even been considered?

There are currently no plans to move to a 2.6.x kernel, for the following reasons.
The 2.6.x kernel is significantly bigger than the 2.4.x kernel, so it would cramp DSL's functionality.
The 2.6.x kernel drops a lot of support for legacy technologies, hardware, etc, and we want to keep DSL functional on as much hardware as possible
All major improvements that have occurred to the 2.6.x tree have been, and are being backported to the 2.4.x tree, by a very active backporting team. And even though Linus said he would not participate in the backporting process this time, the demand for 2.4.x kernel maintenance is about the same as the demand for updates and improvements to the 2.6.x kernel, so even he has helped in the process, though not as much as what he does toward 2.6 development. For evidence of this activity, take a look at kernel.org, where you can see, the 2.4.30 kernel was released, just a few days after 2.6.10.
If you want DSL with a 2.6 Kernel, try DSL-N, aka Damn Small Linux Not! It is very similar to Damn Small Linux, and made by the same people. It has 2.6 Kernel, GTK2, mplayer, core gnu utils (not busybox), and a few other common applications that didn't make the cut for size in DSL.

And btw, I completely agree with you. Performance is not something we just say oh well that won't work. We try it, and if we see that it won't work then it won't.

[rokytnji]

Tiny Core has a 2.6 Kernel and the developer of Tiny Core was on the DSL Team.

Edit: And my IBM a22m runs a 2.6.34 kernel and this IBM T23 runs a (i'm posting in it now)

sh-4.1# cat /proc/version
Linux version 2.6.33.2 (root@puppypc) (gcc version 4.4.3 (Ubuntu 4.4.3-4ubuntu5) ) #1 SMP Thu May 27 10:56:32 EST 2010

[baruch1]

It has no hard drive. I need a live install

[henrikau]

What about creating a custom livecd then? It'll most likely take you a lot more time and effort, but the customization you'll be able to do will (perhaps) be well worth it.

Or you could install a tftp server on your network and to a diskless boot from an image picked from another computer... There's no upper limit to the complexity of the solutions!

[rokytnji]

It has no hard drive. I need a live install

henrikau What about creating a custom livecd then? It'll most likely take you a lot more time and effort,

No it won't. I made one of these in minutes.

Custom NimbleX


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