Installing ubuntu in a veryyy old PC :D

[tomas1126]

Hi folks!
This is my first post in the forum and I hope that someone could help me in this odyssey xD.
Why am I here....long story...
Few month ago I have the idea...request the ubuntu 9.04 by shipping. In 2 weeks (very fast) the cd was in my house, here in buenos aires. As a new computer arrived at home...the last computer become useless, and I decided to try linux on it.
This is the hardware that I found in tha PC:

-Processor: Pentium 3 - Katmai - Stepping 3 - Original Clock 450mhz OC at 504mhz
-RAM Memory: 256mb PC133
-Motherboard: DFI PW65-D
-DVD/CD-RW LG + CD Creative
-HD: Samsung 8.5Go running at 5400rpm

We bought it 10 years ago, originally running windows 98 first edition, then we updated to Win98SE.
First time that I install Ubuntu 9.04, in the first reboot I have some kernel problems....and the solution was to update the BIOS. I have to install again win98SE to do that. After the update of BIOS, the machine worked. It is possible to use the common applications. After the boot use around 120Mb of RAM. I also made some adjustments to improve performance as well. Boot time is around 2 minutes, a little bit slower than in win98 (a blank win 98 hehehe...I remember that this computer could take 5 to 10 minutes booting with win98 with lots of programs instaled)

But....the system is not stable in some situations and maybe you could help me.
When I put a CD on the drive, the desktop disappears and there's no way to access the cd content. I read in the web that this is a bug that was fixed with updates....when this computer have access to internet...this could be resolved.
When I put something in the USB (anything...a pendrive, a mouse...etc) the system FREEZE. The mouse and keyboard does not respond after this. I left the system monitor open while this...and the charts don't show a overload of the system, they simply freeze.
Well...that's are the mayor problems....hope that someone could help me xD
Cya!

[Bemk]

I see you do comply with the bare minimum requirements of Ubuntu, however, I do recommend upgrading your RAM as the recommended requirements of Ubuntu are 384 MB.

I have family also running Ubuntu on a system with small RAM, and her system trashes all the time, while my system, having 512, barely even touches the swap space at all (unless using updates or having a lot of flash opened, heavy virtualisation will also do the trick of getting me to use swap).

Not sure this is the problem though, but it should give you a better experience already (by also shortening the boot time, I call 60 sec.s long).

[coopstah13]

How comfortable are you with command line? If you install with the ubuntu server cd you can do an expert mode install, where you can build from the ground up what you need. You shouldn't run gnome on this machine, but there are plenty of lightweight desktop environments that you can run. I recently installed ubuntu on a VM that contained 64m memory and it runs just fine with fvwm-crystal (runs in <32m).

[Bemk]

Or you can also take a look at XUbuntu, (running an XFCE desktop instead of GNOME, XFCE is lighter).

[tomas1126]

could be xD...I'm going to try xubuntu and then I tell you what happened.

[oz]

Welcome to the forums!

Zenwalk is another very good lightweight option:

www.zenwalk.org - Ever tried zen computing?

Hope you have fun with Linux!

[tomas1126]

okey...I instaled xubuntu...it works a little bit better....the cd problem isn't a problem now...but the usb keep crashing the system xD.
Booting time: a little bit faster than ubuntu
Ram usage after boot: 129mb and without using swap memory
Processor usage: same thing than ubuntu

If anyone knows how to help me with the USB problem & how to improve performance of this system I appreciate.

[tomas1126]

BTW....audio drivers doesn't work xD no sound at all, and music program crash when it tries to play any wav sound.

[D-cat]

I have a few ideas. 1 would be to try a much lighter distro, While I do have xUbuntu running okay on a machine of this era, I did upgrade the RAM to 384MB prior to install. It makes a huge difference. If you are stuck at 256MB, you should seek a distro that's designed for the less RAM usage. Ubuntu with fluxbox seems to work okay for me in a VM, but it might be easier for you to run ZenWalk, Puppy, or DSL.

The USB lockup sounds like an inturrupt issue. Try this, boot with whatever USB device you want to use, does everything work okay? Pulling it out make the system freeze as well? If so, this is going to be a hardware thing that plagues some older hardware. Since you have already updated your BIOS, You can try to alter the BIOS options; look for an option that says "Plug and Play OS" and set it to "No." Save and restart. (You might find the audio magically works after that too.)

I can investigate kernel options that might be useful, but I'll wait for the results of this post first. I need to breath once in a while whence diving off the deep end.

[tomas1126]

Thank you very much for the answer! I am trying those things that you asked to do....

would be to try a much lighter distro, While I do have xUbuntu running okay on a machine of this era( ...) If you are stuck at 256MB, you should seek a distro that's designed for the less RAM usage.

Well....the maximiun capacity of this motherboard is 256Mb, I am stucked
I installed xUbuntu & works pretty fast for this computer...much lighter than ubuntu

Try this, boot with whatever USB device you want to use, does everything work okay? Pulling it out make the system freeze as well? If so, this is going to be a hardware thing that plagues some older hardware. Since you have already updated your BIOS,

About USB....I turned on computer and put my USB pen drive on it. The pendrive light turned it ON. Thing that haven't happened when I put it with xUbuntu running (at the moment of the flash I see a sort of a flash in the pendrive light). The OS started ok with my pendrive in it....
Then....I look in "my places" and...look....there's the files of my pendrive! It worked
Yesterday I deactivated hot swap....I don't know if this matters.
Well....I copy some files in the HD and open some files from the pendrive and it worked fine!
Then I "unmount" the volume and remove my pendrive, the system didn't crashed.
But....when I tried to put it again...the system crashed as always....welll.....at least it works if I put my pendrive at startup....that helps a lot .

You can try to alter the BIOS options; look for an option that says "Plug and Play OS" and set it to "No." Save and restart. (You might find the audio magically works after that too.)

I looked up in BIOS features something related to this...and I couldn't find it. Related with USB stuff I have in the section "Integrated Peripherals"...this two items related with USB:
USB Controller: Enable
USB Keyboard Support: Disable
That option that you are say before..."Plug & Play OS" in witch section it's suppose to be?

Waiting for answers.