Distro For Really Old Desktop?

[doogly]

I recently came into possession of an old Gateway 2000 desktop computer running Windows 95 just fine. Now I'm looking to make it better with Linux, the only problem is I'm having trouble finding a distro that will run on a 200Mhz Pentium MMX with 64mb of RAM and a 2GB hard drive. Does anyone have a suggestion for a distro that can run smoothly with these and includes a word processor and other basic features? The problem I've run into most often is that many distros come on a live CD with an install feature built in, but with 64mb of RAM these live CD's can't even load the Linux kernel. The closest I've gotten so far is DSL which seems pretty good but was still a little slow to load multiple applications. I was wondering if anyone had any other distros they had success with. I'm basically looking for the Linux with the most applications that can run on my machine (hooking it up to the internet is an unlikely possibility. I'll most likely end up loading any additional applications on via a USB drive.) Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks.

[jayd512]

You could look into DamnSmallLinux. It's fully functional, has lots of features.
But check out this poll for other choices for older PC's.

[i92guboj]

You could look into DamnSmallLinux. It's fully functional, has lots of features.
But check out this poll for other choices for older PC's.

He already said he tried DSL (which stands for Damn Small Linux).

On this hardware, probably the main problem will be the amount of ram. If you have a way to plug some more ram, do it. Linux will perform much worse if it runs short on ram than if it runs short on cpu power.

In any case, I would use damn small linux or an old release of debian or slackware. You can also try to build your own using the LFS guides, only if you feel brave enough (compiling in that box will take a *few* days or weeks).

[jayd512]

Sorry... somehow I missed the part where he mentioned trying DSL

[valan]

If you have the time, effort, and know-how, I highly reccomend LFS. You would be surprised how much potential that box could have.

[genesus]

DSL would be MUCH faster than LFS on this system. DSL not only has an incredibly small footprint, but it does so by replacing heavier system tools that are standard in other distros. For example, gcc is gone and replaced with tcc. Going through and manually replacing all of the standard components the LFS manual walks you through is something that would require quite a bit of research.

One thing that may make your experience better and increase your ability to multitask would be to add a swap partition, and make sure the DSL install detects it. Also, there should be a boot option install, so that you don't have to try and load the entire os into memory. 64mb is enough to run DSL quite effectively on an install with a swap; however, as a live cd for this comp, it will be on the slower side.

[i92guboj]

DSL would be MUCH faster than LFS on this system. DSL not only has an incredibly small footprint, but it does so by replacing heavier system tools that are standard in other distros. For example, gcc is gone and replaced with tcc. Going through and manually replacing all of the standard components the LFS manual walks you through is something that would require quite a bit of research.

One thing that may make your experience better and increase your ability to multitask would be to add a swap partition, and make sure the DSL install detects it. Also, there should be a boot option install, so that you don't have to try and load the entire os into memory. 64mb is enough to run DSL quite effectively on an install with a swap; however, as a live cd for this comp, it will be on the slower side.

Yep. The so-called *performance gain* you get by building LFS is nothing compared to the amount of time that you will require to clone the DSL functionality by compiling every piece yourself and hacking into it so it works ok.

Unless you have a very specific purpose, or you just enjoy messing and doing all the stuff yourself, you are better not reinventing the wheel: you can be sure that you are not going to make any better than DSL does on your fist LFS experience.

[arochester]

Check out Slitaz. It's French and not fully translated. It's rubbish with wireless but OK with ethernet. It's only 25Mb whereas DSL is about 64Mb.

[valan]

DSL would be MUCH faster than LFS on this system.

Not nessecarily true. I compared DSL to LFS on my 486 and LFS was noticably faster in most cases. On my p2 I didn't try DSL, but I heavily optimized LFS and it was even faster in some cases than this 3 month old laptop running Arch. Like I said though, you need time, effort, and a good bit of experience to make it happen. DSL is pretty good though for what it is meant for. If you will be happy with DSL, then stick with it. You could also try Deli Linux, that's meant for older computers as well, and if I'm not mistaken based on Slackware, which might also be another option. 200mhz really isn't too slow for general purpose use, and unless you're using a heavy desktop manager and firefox then 64mb shouldn't be too little of ram.

[genesus]

Not nessecarily true...

But more than likely true

LFS can probably be faster if you compile everything correctly to the specifications of the particular box, even then though, it's footprint would be larger if you just follow the LFS manual, which is mostly just a step-by-step how to compile all of the apps. Don't get me wrong, I have done LFS twice, and was really pleased with the results. The second time the system was better than the first. I learned quite a bit very quickly, much like using slackware without a package manager a few years ago.

One big bonus with DSL is its easy-ish compatibility with apt, plus an LFS system can literally take days to research, compile, and setup.