[SOLVED] linux for a old desktop? [Archive]

NightwishFan

May 15th, 2010, 05:16 AM

Puppy Linux:
http://www.puppylinux.org/

Damn Small Linux:
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

I recommend Puppy unless it is too slow, but try it first anyway. If the system has more then 128mb of ram try debian or ubuntu command line only, then add what you want.

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/5.0.4/i386/iso-cd/debian-504-i386-xfce+lxde-CD-1.iso
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems

Phrea

May 15th, 2010, 05:19 AM

I tried a few of these, with great succes.
The post is fairly old, and there will be others too by now, but why not check it out:

http://www.linux.com/archive/feed/52134

WinterRain

May 15th, 2010, 05:28 AM

puppy linux:
http://www.puppylinux.org/

+1

finlost

May 15th, 2010, 05:37 AM

Be prepared for driver issues. My first go with Linux was on an old Win 98 machine in 2007. I fought like hell to get that box running due to having to manually install drivers and whatnot. Once I got it running, it wasn't that spectacular.

With that said, I am going to try to resurrected that old Win 98 box with Lubuntu or some other light weight version of Linux.

snowpine

May 15th, 2010, 05:44 AM

There are many options of course :) but I recommend starting with a test drive of Puppy or SliTaz, two very fast distros for older hardware.

Keep in mind that no Linux distro will magically turn slow hardware into fast hardware. Make sure that your expectations for this old computer are realistic. ;)

ashora

May 15th, 2010, 05:51 AM

I'd say Xubuntu.
I know Lubuntu is more lightweight, but I run regular Ubuntu on a computer not much newer than that with no problem.

never herd of Lubuntu and i tryed xubuntu live cd..i keep getting an error..i then tryed it on my laptop and it worked fine...thanks everyone for your quick responses... im not looking to make it faster..i just want it to stop crashing..it was fine when it had win98 but not anymore because it has windows xp and cant handle it

ashora

May 17th, 2010, 06:17 AM

thanks everyone puppy linux works great!!!

NightwishFan

May 17th, 2010, 07:47 AM

I love puppy, its amazing. Glad you got it working. Perhaps use the thread tools to mark this as solved if you do not need any help.

ashora

May 18th, 2010, 12:16 AM

I love puppy, its amazing. Glad you got it working. Perhaps use the thread tools to mark this as solved if you do not need any help.

accually i cant get the video converter i want to work..how much ram do i need for debian?

NightwishFan

May 18th, 2010, 12:19 AM

Depends on your setup. I would say more than 64mb. For Gnome, 256mb.

kevinatkins

May 18th, 2010, 12:21 AM

I was very impressed with Lubuntu - much lighter than Xubuntu...

ashora

May 18th, 2010, 02:00 AM

I was very impressed with Lubuntu - much lighter than Xubuntu...

alright im downloading it now and going to give it a try

uRock

May 18th, 2010, 02:06 AM

I have been playing with Peppermint Linux OS (http://peppermintos.com/) and I think it is pretty well built. Basically it is Lubuntu with tweaks making it very nice. I have tried the LiveCD on two different systems today and both have worked well. With Firefox open it is still using very little RAM. I will post a screenshot of it to show the exacts.

BTW, Peppermint has ubuntu's repos added, so any program you find on ubuntu will be available to it also.

cascade9

May 18th, 2010, 02:09 AM

accually i cant get the video converter i want to work..how much ram do i need for debian?

Debian Xfce idles at about 70Mb (this can vary a little with hardware) 192MB should run it pretty well.

BTW, 198MB? Typo, or there is something odd going on.

I was very impressed with Lubuntu - much lighter than Xubuntu...

I really wish they would fix xubuntu, it gives Xfce a bad name.

ashora

May 18th, 2010, 03:32 AM

[QUOTE=cascade9;9317514]Debian Xfce idles at about 70Mb (this can vary a little with hardware) 192MB should run it pretty well.

BTW, 198MB? Typo, or there is something odd going on.

my bf said the same thing when i told him how much ram it had...it said it was such an odd number lol

ashora

May 18th, 2010, 03:36 AM

smellyman

May 18th, 2010, 04:43 AM

trying it now but i might put this on my laptop lol

for how old your hardware is you should try AntiX

LINK (http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page)

sidzen

May 18th, 2010, 05:28 AM

ashora

May 18th, 2010, 07:18 AM

oops i was wronge it a 184m of ram..at least thats what tiny me says lol....anyone know how i can change the mouse pointer? i will try the others linuxes everone suggested as well..thanks! im sure i will fine one that i like lol

NightwishFan

May 18th, 2010, 07:22 AM

If you are used to Ubuntu, you can do a low memory install of Ubuntu as well. (Not sure if I mentioned this).

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/LowMemorySystems
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation#Installation%20using%20the%20Alternat e%20CD

cascade9

May 18th, 2010, 09:29 AM

With that limited of a system, your choices are small. My experience with PIII machines points to something like the following:

Ultilex 5.0 (no hard disk required) http://ultilex.linux-bg.org/
TinyMe http://tinymelinux.com/doku.php/home
Saxenos http://saxenos.de/sx/index.php

Have fun!

I used to use SaxenOS a fair bit...IMO its not that much lighter than a ubuntu minimal xfce install, or debian xfce. I dont use it anymore, to long between updates. The last beta was jan 2009, the last stable release 2007.

oops i was wronge it a 184m of ram..at least thats what tiny me says lol....anyone know how i can change the mouse pointer? i will try the others linuxes everone suggested as well..thanks! im sure i will fine one that i like lol

184MB makes sense. 192MB, - 8MB for onboard video shared memory.

ashora

May 18th, 2010, 12:00 PM

what im doing now is installing a older version of puppy linux..the new one puppy 5 has ubuntu packages that dont work!! ..i also liked sllitaz as well..it was wicked fast...anyways i will mark this as solved! thanks everyone

Jakiejake

May 18th, 2010, 12:24 PM

Wow how long does that thing take to boot

Chxta

May 18th, 2010, 12:30 PM

What I did on an old machine (1GHz, 192MB) was to install Debian with minimum options, then install XFCE. Runs like a dream...

Jakiejake

May 21st, 2010, 01:27 PM

What I did on an old machine (1GHz, 192MB) was to install Debian with minimum options, then install XFCE. Runs like a dream...

1GHz, How many cores?

uRock

May 21st, 2010, 03:07 PM

1GHz, How many cores?

And I thought my 1GHz was a decent system. Mine is a dual 64bit which may make a difference, but still.

One really light system that has been tweaked to run well is Peppermint Linux OS. It is built on Lubuntu and is very light weight. Every program in the ubuntu repos is available in Peppermint.

Jakiejake

May 23rd, 2010, 08:42 AM

And I thought my 1GHz was a decent system. Mine is a dual 64bit which may make a difference, but still.

One really light system that has been tweaked to run well is Peppermint Linux OS. It is built on Lubuntu and is very light weight. Every program in the ubuntu repos is available in Peppermint.

Welcome To the world 1.5+ Is a decent system LOL :guitar:

uRock

May 23rd, 2010, 05:31 PM

Mine still does everything pretty quickly. The only thing that feels slow is the POST time during boot up. My Netbook is 1.6GHz, but still can't keep up with the desktop.

cascade9

May 24th, 2010, 11:33 AM

1GHz, How many cores?

Unless its an underclcoked faster CPU, 1Ghz almost always = 1 core.

And I thought my 1GHz was a decent system. Mine is a dual 64bit which may make a difference, but still.

One really light system that has been tweaked to run well is Peppermint Linux OS. It is built on Lubuntu and is very light weight. Every program in the ubuntu repos is available in Peppermint.

1Ghz 'dual 64bit?' What CPU? AFAIK, neither AMD or Intel released 1Ghz dual core 64bit CPUs.

Welcome To the world 1.5+ Is a decent system LOL :guitar:
Measuring speed purely on Mhz/Ghz is misleading. Lots of old CPUs that ran 1.5Ghz or faster than that are very slow these days (all the P4 128/400 celerons).

Jakiejake

May 24th, 2010, 12:41 PM

Mine still does everything pretty quickly. The only thing that feels slow is the POST time during boot up. My Netbook is 1.6GHz, but still can't keep up with the desktop.

Really?
I thought a 1.6 netbook should be faster (Atom I guess)
How Much ram in the desktop

wojox

May 24th, 2010, 12:52 PM

LucidPuppy (http://puppylinux.org/wikka/LucidPuppy)

uRock

May 24th, 2010, 02:59 PM

Really?
I thought a 1.6 netbook should be faster (Atom I guess)
How Much ram in the desktop

2GB The desktop is 64bit also whereas the netbook is 32bit. This is also comparing Lenovo to Asus respectively.

cascade9

May 24th, 2010, 07:50 PM

I guess this means I wont find out what a 1Ghz dual 64bit is then :(

Jakiejake

May 25th, 2010, 12:08 PM

Unless its an underclcoked faster CPU, 1Ghz almost always = 1 core.

1Ghz 'dual 64bit?' What CPU? AFAIK, neither AMD or Intel released 1Ghz dual core 64bit CPUs.

Measuring speed purely on Mhz/Ghz is misleading. Lots of old CPUs that ran 1.5Ghz or faster than that are very slow these days (all the P4 128/400 celerons).

Why would you under clock a CPU?

Jakiejake

May 25th, 2010, 12:09 PM

i guess this means i wont find out what a 1ghz dual 64bit is then :(

lol :(

cascade9

May 25th, 2010, 12:50 PM

Why would you under clock a CPU?

Lots of reasons....mainly to lower heat output, lower power usage and for testing/using hardware with 'issues' LOL.

Jakiejake

May 26th, 2010, 10:18 AM

Lots of reasons....mainly to lower heat output, lower power usage and for testing/using hardware with 'issues' LOL.

LOL :popcorn:
Let's Hope We Find Out What The 64 Bit 1GHz Processor Is...
THE SAGA CONTINUES LOL :P

cascade9

May 26th, 2010, 11:40 AM

I do know a a 1Ghz 64bit CPU- VIA Nano U2300/U3500. But they are only single core CPUs

uRock

May 26th, 2010, 03:17 PM

Mine is an AMD 64bit dual core.

cascade9

May 26th, 2010, 03:40 PM

Mine is an AMD 64bit dual core.

Then unless you have a laptop Turion chip, its sure not 1ghz. ;)

uRock

May 26th, 2010, 03:49 PM

Then unless you have a laptop Turion chip, its sure not 1ghz. ;)

You are going to make me do my homework again.

cascade9

May 26th, 2010, 03:51 PM

No, I'm not...anyway, its pretty easy-

lshw

*-cpu
product: AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4800+
vendor: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD]
physical id: 1
bus info: cpu@0
width: 64 bits
capabilities: fpu fpu_exception wp vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ht syscall nx mmxext fxsr_opt rdtscp x86-64 3dnowext 3dnow rep_good extd_apicid pni cx16 lahf_lm cmp_legacy svm extapic cr8_legacy 3dnowprefetch lbrv

;)

warfacegod

May 26th, 2010, 04:13 PM

cascade9
Measuring speed purely on Mhz/Ghz is misleading. Lots of old CPUs that ran 1.5Ghz or faster than that are very slow these days (all the P4 128/400 celerons).

Just to put my two cents. My laptop has an Intel P4 2.8 Ghz Hyper Thread 32bit (obviously).

My mother's new laptop, that I'm setting up for her, has an AMD Turion64 X2 2.4 Ghz.

In all other respects the two laptops are comparable in specs. Same amount of RAM, same RPM HDDs, similar video cards, etc. The AMD is speedier than my P4 but not by much. As a whole my poor ol' P4 can still keep up with allot of today's processors ...and I'll thank you to stop disparaging its honour.:biggrin:

uRock

May 26th, 2010, 04:16 PM

That doesn't show the speed. The hwinfo app in Karmic showed 1000MHz per processor, but the version in Lucid shows it is 2000MHz, so I guess I was wrong. After seeing the conflicting numbers I looked up the model and it is 2GHz.

cascade9

May 26th, 2010, 04:50 PM

cascade9

Just to put my two cents. My laptop has an Intel P4 2.8 Ghz Hyper Thread 32bit (obviously).

Not quite 'obviously'. There were HTP4s that are 64bit, but by the time intel has released them, they had stopped rating CPUs purely on Mhz (they were Pentium 4 HT 5XX or 6XX models).

My mother's new laptop, that I'm setting up for her, has an AMD Turion64 X2 2.4 Ghz.

In all other respects the two laptops are comparable in specs. Same amount of RAM, same RPM HDDs, similar video cards, etc. The AMD is speedier than my P4 but not by much. As a whole my poor ol' P4 can still keep up with allot of today's processors ...and I'll thank you to stop disparaging its honour.:biggrin:

Awww, its a P4, not a celeron. That makes a difference- even the original 400Mhz FSB P4s has a bit more cahce (minimum 256K, and normally 512K). IMO The P4s were pretty awful untill they got the 533Fsb models out (512/533). I've got a P42.53 (512/533) and its alright...the 128/400 2.0Ghz Celeron I have is soo much slower its not funny.

I'm suprised that you rate the turoin64 as 'not much faster' than the P4, but some people notice those things, others dont. Even then...I'm sure that if you had the CPU changed to a 128/400 celeron you would be seaching for why it was so slow within miuntes of booting up ;)

That doesn't show the speed. The hwinfo app in Karmic showed 1000MHz per processor, but the version in Lucid shows it is 2000MHz, so I guess I was wrong. After seeing the conflicting numbers I looked up the model and it is 2GHz.

Not suprised. Hardinfo is a neat little tool, but its got issues. I would have known the model number, its the sort of semi-useless stuff I remember really well.

NightwishFan

May 26th, 2010, 08:53 PM

It measured your CPU throttled down by the ondemand governor. That happens with some tools.

warfacegod

May 26th, 2010, 09:46 PM

I once put a 1.8 Celeron in place of a 1.4 Pentium. That lasted all of 4 hours.

I'm just not seeing much of a difference in performance between the two running the same apps and OS. The AMD does a few things a little faster but it's nothing to cheer about. In fact, I've been timing my OS installs on my P4 and it's always somewhere around 6.5 - 7 minutes. The 3 installs I've done on the AMD machine were all well over 15 minutes.

cascade9

May 26th, 2010, 11:00 PM

I once put a 1.8 Celeron in place of a 1.4 Pentium. That lasted all of 4 hours.

Gah! From 'bad' to 'worse'. Sorry, like I said, early P4s are deadful IMO...and the 128/400 celerons make them look good. When I play with those early p4's and 128K celerons, I'm always glad I bought an AMD in that period ;)

I'm just not seeing much of a difference in performance between the two running the same apps and OS. The AMD does a few things a little faster but it's nothing to cheer about. In fact, I've been timing my OS installs on my P4 and it's always somewhere around 6.5 - 7 minutes. The 3 installs I've done on the AMD machine were all well over 15 minutes.

Odd. I have no idea why the AMD install would be slower (maybe CD speed?). I'm assuming that is with the same distro and version. ;)

BTW, just for fun- I've got sidux installed in less than 8 minutes on a much slower machine. Not that I really care about install time.

warfacegod

May 27th, 2010, 02:12 AM

Gah! From 'bad' to 'worse'. Sorry, like I said, early P4s are deadful IMO...and the 128/400 celerons make them look good. When I play with those early p4's and 128K celerons, I'm always glad I bought an AMD in that period ;)

Odd. I have no idea why the AMD install would be slower (maybe CD speed?). I'm assuming that is with the same distro and version. ;)

BTW, just for fun- I've got sidux installed in less than 8 minutes on a much slower machine. Not that I really care about install time.

I use an USB install disc because the ROM drive in my Intel (Toshiba) doesn't work. I used the same jump drive for both machines. Boot time is also much slower on the AMD. Aside from those two things, it performs either equal to or slightly faster

Jakiejake

May 27th, 2010, 10:42 AM

Not quite 'obviously'. There were HTP4s that are 64bit, but by the time intel has released them, they had stopped rating CPUs purely on Mhz (they were Pentium 4 HT 5XX or 6XX models).

Awww, its a P4, not a celeron. That makes a difference- even the original 400Mhz FSB P4s has a bit more cahce (minimum 256K, and normally 512K). IMO The P4s were pretty awful untill they got the 533Fsb models out (512/533). I've got a P42.53 (512/533) and its alright...the 128/400 2.0Ghz Celeron I have is soo much slower its not funny.

I'm suprised that you rate the turoin64 as 'not much faster' than the P4, but some people notice those things, others dont. Even then...I'm sure that if you had the CPU changed to a 128/400 celeron you would be seaching for why it was so slow within miuntes of booting up ;)

Not suprised. Hardinfo is a neat little tool, but its got issues. I would have known the model number, its the sort of semi-useless stuff I remember really well.

Getting too confusing for me

cascade9

May 27th, 2010, 08:24 PM

I use an USB install disc because the ROM drive in my Intel (Toshiba) doesn't work. I used the same jump drive for both machines. Boot time is also much slower on the AMD. Aside from those two things, it performs either equal to or slightly faster

Well, that rules out the CD/DVD drive. *shruggs* As long as your happy, your happy, and thats all that matters, eh? ;)

Getting too confusing for me

Sory, hardware talk can get confusing to a lot of poeple.

Not my fault I have a stupid memory for part numbers, etc.. Heh, I've won a few beers, and few bucks and cannbinoidal refreshments as well, from that knowledge, so I'm happy...and thats all that matters eh? ;) :lolflag: