OpenSUSE compatibility?

[EricOnTheWeb]

I'm about to get a disc of the openSUSE distro for my Windows machine. Being a Windows user I am finding Linux to be much more invloved as in choices, but have done the research and I am settled on openSUSE for my introduction to Linux.

One last question is if my computer can run openSUSE well without a crash or slow down.

The Specs of my machine are..

Dell Dimension 2400

Intel(R) Celeron(R)CPU 2.60ghz

256MB of RAM

********* I believe the processor is a X86? So I need to get the version of openSUSE for X86?

Thank you for helping and as soon as I know the answers to this question I will be getting the disc and get started....thank you.

[reed9]

256 MB is pretty light. Most distros using GNOME or KDE recommend at least 512 MB. It should run, but performance will not be great.

If there is an OpenSuse spin using XFCE (sort of mid-range desktop environment) or LXDE, that would probably be better.

Or you could look at something like Antix.

[oz]

One last question is if my computer can run openSUSE well without a crash or slow down.

I don't think any OS or computer is guaranteed to be crash or slow down proof, but it should run fine.

So I need to get the version of openSUSE for X86?

Yes, if you have a 32-bit processor, you'll need the x86 version of the distribution.


Edit: oops, speedy reed beat me to the submit button!

[EricOnTheWeb]

My WindowsXP seems fast on here with 256MB. Perhaps OpenSUSE is more hungry than XP?....

BTW do you know of a chart that has all the system rquirements onthe Distros?...

Again thanks for the info and I can't wait to get rid of Windows pretty soon lol.

[gogalthorp]

The New GUI's are all pretty power and memory hungry. Eye candy is expensive. KDE and Gnome are the two most popular GUI's but there are many other lighter GUIs without all the eye candy. Also Distro's that are more suited for older hardware. Suse tend to include everything including the kitchen sink.

[reed9]

My WindowsXP seems fast on here with 256MB. Perhaps OpenSUSE is more hungry than XP?....

BTW do you know of a chart that has all the system rquirements onthe Distros?...

Again thanks for the info and I can't wait to get rid of Windows pretty soon lol.

Remember that Windows XP was released in 2001. Comparing a current linux release to something from 8 years ago is kind of apples and oranges. Compared to Windows Vista/Windows 7, linux still has modest hardware requirements.

I don't know of a chart of system requirements for linux, but in general, anything that runs GNOME or KDE, I wouldn't go less than 512 MB. Some distros with XFCE (ahem, Xubuntu) also I wouldn't want to run with less than 512 MB, but others 256 MB would be acceptable. Anything with LXDE or just a window manager (openbox, fluxbox, jwm, pekwm, etc.) you could likely get away with 128 MB RAM.

That said, heavier distros can run with 256 MB, but I personally would not find the performance acceptable. That's sort of a judgement call as to what you're ok with. And even with a lightweight window manager, if you run a heavy program like Amarok, say, a music player, performance wouldn't be great.

Also, some live CD installers may have trouble with low RAM machines. If you run into trouble, you may need to explore if the distro has an alternative text installation CD.

Crunchbang is another lightweight distro you might try.

[D-cat]

If you run with Classic KDE (3.5), the performance of the desktop itself will be acceptable, but still not great (especially once you have a few programs running). Make sure you set up a good 512 MB swap space.

Swapping will slow the system down. Running with a lighter window manager will improve performance.

OpenSuSE does have a decent defaults setup for FVWM2. It's not incredibly new-user friendly, but you will at least have a launching point advantage that other light-weight WM's under SuSE don't give you.

The IceWM interface links to the system menu, but any customizations you'll be doing plenty of reading to figure out the file names and format it's looking for.

I advise with the others to avoid Gnome or KDE4* with only 256M RAM; after launching a couple programs, you'll spend more time swapping than running (when you have more actively running than physical RAM, you get a condition I like to call swap hell... it can take several minutes to break out of it even after killing an offending application)

There's plenty to choose from. I'd suggest you set KDE 3.5 default and install some other Window Managers (particularly IceWM and FVWM2). You can select which one you want to try at each log-in screen. One of the light-weights will run much better in 256MB RAM, but you may find the ease and relative familiarity of KDE 3.5 worth the performance hit. In any event, this gives you the opportunity to experiment with the various options and settle on the one that best suits you.

*Supposedly KDE4 has better memory management than 3.5. I've heard various comments that suggest you still don't want to tempt the computer demons... maybe better management, still a bigger hog I guess.