Linux on an old Gateway Solo

[xeonoex]

I can't get Linux to run correct on an old laptop. I know the specs aren't great but it should be lots faster than what it got.

I tried
OpenSuSE KDE - Wouldn't get to that install wizard (forgot the name) after you click install.
Ubuntu - Live CD would run extremely slow and freeze
Ubuntu alt CD - Still froze after a black screen
Fluxbuntu - Actually installed, but ran very slow, had 3 cursors on screen, and all the colors were inverted. (I fixed the last one though)

It has like 550 MHz Celeron and like 256MB RAM.
I know it's running slow cause XP ran faster.

[techieMoe]

You might also consider trying Damn Small Linux or VectorLinux.

[xeonoex]

I forgot to mention I tried DSL and it did the black screen thing.

I have a feeling its a problem with Linux compatibility itself or something. I searched and found people having similar problems but none of their solutions worked for me.

[Jonathan183]

I forgot to mention I tried DSL and it did the black screen thing.

I have a feeling its a problem with Linux compatibility itself or something. I searched and found people having similar problems but none of their solutions worked for me.

Have you tried some of the boot options with DSL. When you boot from the live CD you may find options like nopcmcia and vga=788 etc will give you a system which boots. You have enough RAM to run DSL, Xubuntu etc but are a bit light on memory for running Ubuntu.

[xeonoex]

I don't think I had the live CD version of DSL. I don't remember any options like that. I remember SuSE had some, and I took some test saying SuSE would be the best option so I posted it here.

How do you activate the options and which ones should I try?

[IsaacKuo]

I've been experimenting with Ubuntu on a couple laptops, including this Compaq I'm typing on right now. It has a default Ubuntu install, with full GNOME running on a 400mhz PIII with only 128megs of RAM (that's really less than ideal!).

One frustration I keep on encountering is Ubuntu's stupid default boot options for "quiet" and "splash". I don't really know why, but it really screws up the graphics (to unusability) on this laptop; on the other one it causes boot up to be stupendously slow and with nothing but a black screen for ten minutes (it looks like it has hung in the meantime). Stupid, stupid, stupid. Removing the "quiet splash" options from /boot/grub/menu.lst fixes this, but the very first thing Ubuntu wants to do is load up the latest updates and among these updates something stupidly puts those bad options back into /boot/grub/menu.lst.

Oh well, at least it doesn't put the "quiet splash" options in the "recovery" mode bootup, so it's not hard to get to a working text console to fix it.

My suspicion is that something similar is going on with your laptop. I used to have a very lean stripped down install of Windows XP on this machine, and it wasn't any faster than this relatively bloated default Ubuntu GNOME install.

[xeonoex]

So I should try to boot it in recovery mode?

[IsaacKuo]

Yes (assuming you're using an Ubuntu install). It will not attempt to display boot "splash", and if my suspicion is correct this will result in a MUCH faster boot time.

It will bring you to a text console, rather than the graphical login screen. At this point, just enter the command "exit" and it will finish the bootup process to the graphical login window.

As I said before, assuming it's the problem I suspect, this will boot up MUCH faster than with the "quiet splash" options. Assuming this is correct, then you'll want to fix /boot/grub/menu.lst by removing the "quiet splash" options from the default boot line (the first one, above the "recovery mode" entry).

[xeonoex]

>_>
Black screen after the Ubuntu loading screen.

[IsaacKuo]

Oh, I almost forgot--the Ubuntu default grub install now almost skips the boot menu. You have a 3 second window to press "Escape" to get to the boot menu (at which point you can boot up in recovery mode).

Hopefully, the recovery mode still leaves out the "quiet splash" options. It just causes problems.