Best Lightweight Version?

[Weegie2010]

I have a Dell Latitude C600 laptop (Pentium-III 850 Mhz, 256Gb ram, 20Gb hard drive) and was wondering which version of linux would most suit my needs for a dual boot with Win XP.

Ideally I want to use GIMP, Firefox and Open Office

I have tried all current variants of Ubuntu - Kubuntu ran at snail pace (though I'll probably use that one on my desktop PC - I like the GUI) and Xubuntu was not noticably faster Ubuntu (both are flagging up "crash report detected" messages.

I like the GUI of Xubuntu and wondered if a RAM upgrade to 512Gb would enable it (or even Ubuntu) to run better? Apart from the error messages they seem to function adequately though and it would be good to have an Ubuntu variant on my laptop as well as desktop if possible.

I have tried Puppy linux and even though the GUI looks good I am not particularly impressed with it, in particular the sofware and lack of ability to add packages like GIMP or Open Office.

I have also tried Crunchbang just running off the live CD - while the speed is great the GUI seems a bit lacking - it it possible to configure it with menu/task bars top and/or bottom to look more like Gnome or XFCE (i.e. so I don't have to right-click all the time to get menus)? Also I can't figure out how to hide the system info and keyboard shortcuts list on the right hand side.

As for Fedora I can't get it to install at all and it just freezes.

Alternatively are there any other versions that I should try out?

Disk space allocation isn't a problem up to about 10 Gig as I save all my files on a portable hard drive. I'm just wondering processor and RAM requirements.

[rokytnji]

Give AntiX 8.5 a whirl I guess. Runs Ok on my IBM A22 with 256mb of ram Ok.

Debian Squeeze Repositories. Mepis repos are commented out in /etc/apt/sources.list. Apt-get is the default. Aptitude is not installed but can be. You need to use one or the other only. Apt-get or aptitude. Synaptic Package manager included in full ISO with Icewm and Fluxbox with Rox-Pinboard enhancements if you want them.

Everybody has there own tastes when it comes to lightweight installs. Some are Arch. Others Crux. There is a 10mb Ubuntu install also where you can build up on it. Debian Net install is another. Vector and Zenwalk another. Choices, choices.


Edit: and if Windows Managers and software disappointed you in Puppy Linux. There are XFCE Puplets and KDE Puplets , E17 Puplets and on and on. You just gotta look;

add packages like GIMP or Open Office.

Not for me

Just have to adapt to how the operating system should work is all. All Linux distros are different.

[reed9]

Xubuntu is a notoriously bloated XFCE spin. 256MB RAM should be enough for most XFCE desktops, though depending they might still be a little slow. Bumping up to 512MB should help.

With 256MB, I would recommend going with a lightweight window manager like openbox, which Crunchbang uses. But they are a little more work to set up or configure than XFCE.

You might try Debian with XFCE (or Sidux, based on Debian) or the Fedora XFCE spin and see if they perform better. Or try the Linux Mint LXDE or Fluxbox editions. Their XFCE edition will probably be much like Xubuntu, since they're closely based on Ubuntu.
About Spin: XFCE
sidux.com :: debian based live cd development
Download - Linux Mint

[Weegie2010]

Thanks for the replies. I'll try out Mint XFCE as well as Fluxbox and LXDE and a couple more LXDE distros, the GUI looks good from screenshots. Also a couple of variants of Vector Linux.

Any users of any of these have any comments on them?

Also I've just come across Lubuntu, LXDE version of Ubuntu but I can only see beta versions. Is this a new release / work in progress?

[mbuell]

I like Vector. The distro installs for me - lol, a big plus, many haven't. The forums are good, friendly (mostly), and helpful (mostly). All the lightweight desktops require more config file editing to make the menus work when you need to do changes, or often when you add software. I also like SOAD - based on openSUSE, with Enlightenment desktop. Haven't tried to install OO on that machine, but it has YAST, which is a recommendation in itself. BTW, Vector has done a very good job of putting configuration stuff on the menu.

The reasons I'm not running Vector now is because of configuration issues, tho. I initially installed it for my server - but my database choice only came with rpm or deb installation files, and installation on Vector failed. Then I tried to make it my desktop choice, but in between my Palm and some other issues (a kernel update failed), I gave it up - and moved to Debian. Which I eventually gave up for similar reasons, and now I'm running Ubuntu on my server, and openSUSE on my desktop, and I'm happy. The SOAD is on an old box destined to become my LAN router.

Upgrade the RAM? Always, if you can. Things will always run better. Even 500 meg may be small, though, for Gnome and KDE (Kubuntu).