Min Requirements for Distros..

[BamaPanda]

First .. thanks for the forum ...very well done ...NICE! I am Andy Smith, 62 years young, and live near Talladega, AL.

I am hoping for a bit of clarity on a distro to try. I did read the stickys.

Now my delima. I have an older laptop (Compaq w/64 mg. ram; 533 mhz AMD K6).

I installed an old Ubuntu (5.04) ..very slow. Then I tried 10.10 & 10.04 ...neither would load.

Finally I put DSL on a DVD to use at boot (no pen option). It is OK,

So to my main question. Are there small distros simular to DSL, being lightweight and fast ..that will actually load on your PC like Ubuntu ? Actually a list showing these small distros and their actual size or memory requirements would be even better.

I do plan to get the memory up to 192 ..the max it will take.

Thanks for any help. Linus is fun. Heck ..if I get good at it ...you never know. It might replace Win 7 on th main PC. http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/ima...icon_smile.gif

[chadfluegge]

Distrowatch would be a great place to start...they seem to have a pretty comprehensive list.

I like slitaz, myself...

[BamaPanda]

That does help .. definitely.

I need to get this older, heavy copy of Ubuntu replaced with something lighter.
After reading about many of the different choices for my low budget project ..I am going to try Mepis to start for an complete install.

I will also give your SliTaz a try as a live alternative. It will be interesting to see if it is much different than the DSL live I have now.

Thanks ...again.

[chadfluegge]

Slitaz does have a version for what little RAM that you do have; however, it would definitely run better with the 192 that you say you can upgrade to...

[tornow]

As i use Debian i for one would go for Debian.
You can deselect "desktop-environment" at the end of the installation process,
and will end with a only-command-line-OS
(then install xorg, a window-manager like fluxbox/icewm, finally the apps you need, but no gnome or kde-apps.).
I did run debian that way on a 64MB laptop, but that is not much fun
(i use it as cli only now).

antix is a good distro for older systems (based on Mepis)
Lots of people like puppy.

196MB sounds ok for a pleasant experience
(assuming one picks the right distro and the right choice of applications)

[nguill00]

Try knoppix or deli linux

[tmarrero1234]

Hi,

I have tested Vector Linux in a Virtual Machine with as little as 32MB of RAM. Of course, when openning applications, the response time was very slow. In your case, your laptop has 64MB of RAM. It should run fine. I am including some tests that I have done, showing the elapsed times of running some applications. The virtual machine I have is using a Pentium 4 running at 2.4GHz. Your laptop's Processor is runnung at 533MHz. This difference will have an effect on the applications' loading times. Use this information only as a guide.

Vector Linux boot times, including 10 seconds of LILO boot time, up to Login Screen:
With 64MB of RAM -> 1 min. 40 sec.
With 128MB of RAM ->1 min. 35 sec.

Application loading times with 64MB of RAM:
Desktop Software Tested, included in Vector Linux:
Word Processing: Abiword -> 14 sec.
Spreadsheet: Gnumeric -> 9 sec.
Publishing: Scribus -> 1 min. 6 sec.
Web Browser: Firefox -> 23 sec.
Web Browser: SeaMonkey Browser -> 30 sec.
E-mail Client: SeaMonkey Mail -> 24 sec.
Instant Messaging: Pidgin -> 10 sec.
Desktop Software Tested, not included in Vector Linux (Installs with Gslapt Package Manager):
Office Suite: OpenOffice 3 -> 1 min. 12 sec.

Application loading times using 128MB of RAM:
Desktop Software Tested, included in Vector Linux:
Word Processing: Abiword -> 9 sec.
Spreadsheet: Gnumeric -> 5 sec.
Publishing: Scribus -> 35 sec.
Web Browser: Firefox -> 12 sec.
Web Browser: SeaMonkey Browser -> 12 sec.
E-mail Client: SeaMonkey Mail -> 12 sec.
Instant Messaging: Pidgin -> 7 sec.
Desktop Software Tested, not included in Vector Linux (Installs with Gslapt Package Manager):
Office Suite: OpenOffice 3 -> 42 sec.

One of the most important benefits I found using Vector Linux is that it is one of the lightest multi-user GNU-Linux distributions that I have tried. There are other light distributions, but they are not multi-user. Vector Linux is based on Slackware Linux.

I encourage you to try Vector Linux if you can. The user interface is sleek. Download Vector Linux Standard Edition for a nice XFCE Desktop Environment.

Cordially,

Tom (tmarrero1234)
CompTIA A+ Certified Professional
HP Accredited Platform Specialist

[canineloop]

I always recommend Puppy Linux for resource-starved computers. I am using version 3.x "retro" on an IBM laptop at work with a Pentium II CPU, far slower than your Compaq with an AMD K6/2 533mhz. CPU.

I'd guess it can recognize up to 256MB of RAM(?) That could let you run Puppy 4.x with more modern resources.

Either way, hands down it's Puppy Linux, a distro I've used in many machines for many years.

puponmanyoldlaptops (known here as canineloop)

[srdorothy]

First .. thanks for the forum ...very well done ...NICE! I am Andy Smith, 62 years young, and live near Talladega, AL.

I am hoping for a bit of clarity on a distro to try. I did read the stickys.

Now my delima. I have an older laptop (Compaq w/64 mg. ram; 533 mhz AMD K6).

I installed an old Ubuntu (5.04) ..very slow. Then I tried 10.10 & 10.04 ...neither would load.

Finally I put DSL on a DVD to use at boot (no pen option). It is OK,

So to my main question. Are there small distros simular to DSL, being lightweight and fast ..that will actually load on your PC like Ubuntu ? Actually a list showing these small distros and their actual size or memory requirements would be even better.

I do plan to get the memory up to 192 ..the max it will take.

Thanks for any help. Linus is fun. Heck ..if I get good at it ...you never know. It might replace Win 7 on th main PC.

Hi, Andy--

I did some snooping around to find the best small distro because until recently we had mostly pretty old computers. After trying several, the very best in my opinion is Puppy Linux, especially in its current version based on Ubuntu Lucid. The version is 5.2, and it is pretty amazing. User friendly, gets you online quickly--wired, wireless, dialup. Not too many distros can claim that--especially dialup.

I just upgraded a little Sony Vaio (old) from Puppy 4.2 to 5.2 for a friend. This little critter has no hard drive; the person who owned it before removed it. But it runs Puppy just fine from RAM (i.e. load it from the disk, then you can remove the disk if you want and use the cd-rom for other things.) The Vaio doesn't have much memory either, altho I can't recall the amount, but Puppy runs fine. Note: if you run Puppy from the disk or from RAM, you'll want to take advantage of the opportunity Puppy gives you to make a pupsave file--which saves all your settings including network stuff and also your data files--either on the hard drive or on a flash drive. You can also do it on a cd but only if you have a cd-rw.

When we still had older computers, I installed Puppy to the hard drive. It works just as well there...and I didn't have to worry about removing the disk after booting several computers. Some of these were 1998 Dells and sundry others. 6 gb hard drives! And I think originally they had 64 MB RAM, but eventually I upgraded the RAM so that most had at least 128. By the way, Puppy encourages the use of the "frugal" install, but I always did a "full" install.

I can't recommend Puppy too highly. Of course, if you want to do office work, you can with the applications on Puppy, but they are not as full-featured as you'll find on Ubuntu, for example. But if you're doing email and web browsing and so on, i think you'll be happy with Puppy. Do a search for Puppy Linux 5.2 download if you're interested...and have fun! Also, if you need any help figuring it out, I'm glad to help.

Sr. Dorothy

[codger51]

In the past I have been able to use Slackware on older machines with small amounts of RAM. One of the older versions should work fine.