Ubuntu vs. Puppy vs. something else for me...

[Noobert]

I have a laptop with vista... First of all will switching over to ubuntu or something else speed my pc up... I only use it for web browsing and documents etc. so I am not going to be one of the people who say "you told me I should use linux and know unreal tournement 14 doesnt run on it "because I am sure you here that alot. Yes I understand Linux is a bit more work than windows... I have played around with pup and flash drive ubuntu in the past. I either plan to remove vista altogether or I may dual boot.

Here are my laptop specs:
Intel Celeron R 520 1.6ghz
mem is 1gb
32 bit OS
windows exp of 2.2


Also what will be fastest... It is not like it is really slow now or anything....I just want to know if switching to linux will make a noticable speed increase for me.... Thanks.

[arinlares]

I'm using Ubuntu on an Asus EEE 1000HA, similar specs, but with an Intel Atom processor @ 1.6GHz, and 1GB RAM, like you. So, you can use Ubuntu with no problems (it runs fine for me). What other hardware do you have? Or, even, what's the company/model of your laptop?

[Noobert]

I have a Toshiba satelite a135-s2356

I am looking for a fast distro... Will pup run faster than Ubuntu or about the same?

Thanks for your help...

[reed9]

Yes, puppy will probably be noticeably faster than Ubuntu.

You have the specs to run any distro. One of the main differences in the responsiveness of the system is the software it runs, especially the window manager or desktop environment. Puppy uses...jwm, I think? I'm not sure exactly, but I know it uses a lightweight window manager. Ubuntu uses GNOME. Any distro with GNOME or KDE will be a little slower. Distros with standalone window managers like openbox, fluxbox, jwm, pekwm, icewm, etc. will be quicker.

Beyond that, Puppy chooses lighter-weight applications than Ubuntu, so they use the Rox file manager instead of Ubuntu (and GNOME's) nautilus file manager, grafburn instead of brasero for burning software, and so on.

Lastly, if you're running puppy off a live cd/usb, it's running entirely from RAM, which is much much quicker to read from than a hard disk. A hard disk install might seem a little slower than the live environment.

[Noobert]

Wait so puppy actually runs faster from the live cd than an install??? Wow.

My other question is will Ubuntu run noticabley faster than vista?

Also would I be better off dualbooting or getting rid of vista... I only have an 80gb hdd with about 30gbs left on it... (Which should be plenty enough)

Thanks.

[yancek]

Wait so puppy actually runs faster from the live cd than an install??? Wow.

As reed9 said, because it is running in RAM so it is faster.

Ubuntu is a pretty full fledged distribution and I don't know how much difference there will be from vista.

Dual-booting, depends on what you want and what you plan to do. You could try Puppy and create a file store documents on your vista partition while you are trying it out before installing.

[Noobert]

So I would be better off not installing puppy and running it from disc or from a flash drive and it will be faster? Wow.

Now I understand why it said to keep the disc in to increase performance when I installed it on the pc in my basement.

[Liberty76]

Wait so puppy actually runs faster from the live cd than an install??? Wow.

My other question is will Ubuntu run noticabley faster than vista?

Also would I be better off dualbooting or getting rid of vista... I only have an 80gb hdd with about 30gbs left on it... (Which should be plenty enough)

Thanks.

Ubuntu will run a lot faster on slower hardware. With 1.6 ghz 2 gig of memory my ubuntu system is pretty snappy and boots in a flash. Vista performance would be dismal.

[htismaqe]

Puppy is fast, but I've just not found it to be robust enough. Mainline Ubuntu isn't going to run all that well given your specs.

However, I would strongly recommend you look at XUBUNTU. I use it and I've got it tweaked now to where it runs in about 140MB of memory footprint. It uses XFCE4 desktop (as opposed to Gnome or KDE which require more resources) and with Karmic coming out next week, they're making a concerted effort to make it "slimmer".

My daughter runs it on her PC - a Pentium 3 1Ghz with 512MB of PC133 RAM - and it's TRIPLE the speed of Windows XP SP3.

[D-cat]

Puppy has the advantage that it'll boot in pretty much any hardware environment because it leaves the setup to you, yet unlike other distros with that same idea, it's still usable right away. It's a really good "best of both worlds- bring a stubborn old system back to life" distro.

I also just brought back an 1.4 GHz HP with 128 MB RAM with Vector 6.0 Lite (IceWM). RAM was the limiting factor on that computer, but it still moved right along with no major difficulties (had some minor lack-of-useful-defaults issues to take care of, like starting rpc and cups on boot so I could use nfs and printing). I just gave that computer away this week as a kids' birthday present... I have yet to hear a full report, but I think they'll like it.

Back to this. When it comes to Gnome and KDE verses lighter window managers, the differences are in the details. Gnome and KDE include extra features (and I'm not just talking eye candy) that lighter WM's don't. Some are subtle things like the usefullness of tool tips and status bars in the file managers, icon previews, etc. Also, when you install new software, Gnome and KDE will for the most part update the master menu for you, other WM don't (though the better distros include a script so updating the menu is relatively painless, just an extra step). Auto-launching new windows when you insert a disc or flash drive is another example (any distro running udev and HAL should automount).

The lighter distros are every bit as useful as the heavier ones, but it's those little things you find that the lighter distros do not do which allows them to run faster in less RAM which the user may not notice until they go to use it that can make someone prefer the heavier desktop, even if it is slower. With your 1GB RAM, it should still edge out Windows. It's only when you gloriously exceed your RAM with open applications and enter "swap hell" that Gnome and KDE grind to a snails pace... sometimes slower.

Ultimately the decision is yours. Puppy, Vector, and some others are blazingly fast (especially when run inside RAM... check the boot options) at the cost of some automation. Gnome and KDE are slower but do everything you've become accustomed to. XFCE is somewhere in the middle.