Good distro for Web on older hardware?

[rapper97]

I am working on setting up a communal machine in a communal living space, on a box with 256 megs of RAM, a PIII processor, and a smallish hd - I'd actually really like something that runs comfortably under 128 MB. This box would be primarily for Web browsing, of course (proprietary plugins and all), but also maybe for basic things like word processing, playing videos or music, image editing, etc. I was looking briefly at Lubuntu, but more likely will go with Puppy, Zenwalk, or Crunchbang; openSuSE also seemed like a good idea for some reason. The thing is, all those distributions seem to be geared towards more than just a desktop user, unless you consider a desktop user someone who whips up Perl scripts in their spare time - I'm sorry, no one is ever going to program on this computer. Puppy seemed sufficiently ridiculously small, but, aside from also having more than what I consider "basic," the default DE feels a little bit clunky to me; I'd like something that feels "slicker," and Xfce and LXDE seemed to fit the bill in my experiences with them. Is my best bet to just get one of the above and take off all the unneeded stuff? or is there some other distro that's both geared to the average esktop user and ridiculously lightweight?

[whoop]

tiny core

[Cam42]

tiny core
This.

[Bigtime_Scrub]

Debian with Xfce, which is waaaay faster than Xubuntu.

Also consider Puppy or CrunchBang.

[-grubby]

Can I say Arch without being stabbed?

[earthpigg]

the current stable release of my project is based on ubuntu 9.04, if that isnt a big deal to you. it uses less resources than crunchbang, but more than tinycore, puppy, etc.

[Hallvor]

Install Debian Lenny without any desktop environment, then follow this to get a minimal LXDE desktop: http://wiki.lxde.org/en/Debian

From there you can just install what you need. Much easier than removing all the stuff you don`t want/need.

[Bachstelze]

Ubuntu, with whatever DE/WM you feel like installing. I would personally go with Fluxbox, but XFCE should be fine if you want a bit more eye-candy.

[RiceMonster]

Slackware

[Grifulkin]

tiny core

+9000


Can I say Arch without being stabbed?

Stabity Stab Stab. Seriously Love Arch.

[snowpine]

I'd suggest BrowserLinux (formerly known as BrowserPuppy).

It does one thing, very well.

[dragos240]

I got arch on a 124mb ram i586 computer. Even though arch is i686, it worked. Detected all my hardware, and I got xfce working on it. It's very very fast. However, you have more ram, and most likely more HD space than my laptop, so you can do more.

[dragos240]

+9000


WHAT 9000!!? THERES NO WAY THAT CAN BE RlGHT!

[RiceMonster]

IT'S OVER NlNE THOUSAND!!!

No it's not.

[Grifulkin]

WHAT 9000!!? THERES NO WAY THAT CAN BE RlGHT!

Exactly what I was thinking while typing that response.

[dragos240]

No it's not.


I changed that the instant I noticed that. Check it out now.

[NormanFLinux]

ZevenOS. BEOS-like distro, works great on underpowered hardware. I imagine once Haiku is ready, it will also run well on older hardware.

[Warpnow]

Run the X server directly with different programs from the command line, without a WM/DE.

[RiceMonster]

Run the X server directly with different programs from the command line, without a WM/DE.

Why? Talk about making life hard for no reason. If you want to keep resources as low as possible, you can use evilwm or dwm, which will hardly add anything.

[rapper97]

Can I say Arch without being stabbed?

I've looked at that, and I like the idea behind it, but given that it plonks you into a login screen with no GUI, it just seems like waaaaaay too much heavy lifting to get it to where I wanna be. I mean, someone must have done all that for me already, right?


ZevenOS. BEOS-like distro, works great on underpowered hardware.
<3 BeOS, but let's face it, it's not worth it to have a system that's basically Ubuntu with extra stuff on top of it just to make it look like Zeta, for a bunch of people who have never heard of Be. This needs to be a rock-solid, set-it-up-for-someone-else-and-let-it-just-run machine.

[Greg]

I've looked at that, and I like the idea behind it, but given that it plonks you into a login screen with no GUI, it just seems like waaaaaay too much heavy lifting to get it to where I wanna be. I mean, someone must have done all that for me already, right?

If you're not willing to go command line, then SliTaz or TinyCore is your best bet. But command lines are not that hard.

[Warpnow]

Why? Talk about making life hard for no reason. If you want to keep resources as low as possible, you can use evilwm or dwm, which will hardly add anything.

Its not that hard to do. I use the script posted here:http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8352073&postcount=6

[RiceMonster]

Its not that hard to do. I use the script posted here:http://ubuntuforums.org/showpost.php?p=8352073&postcount=6

I didn't say it was hard to do; I know how to do it. I meant you're just making things difficult for yourself because once you've opened a window, you can't move or resize it. So what's the point?

[Warpnow]

The OP said primarily for web browsing. My thought was throw up an X session with a web browser and leave it up. You want something else, open a new x session.

[earthpigg]

Chromium OS? :D

or, at least consider using Chrome instead of ff.

[Warpnow]

Chromium OS? :D

or, at least consider using Chrome instead of ff.

Definitely. Firefox will hardly run on 128mbs of ram in my experience. I used a 128meg PC up until about 2 years ago when I got my C2D. Firefox would take 10 minutes to start.

Chromium OS actually WOULD work well. Or really, any OS with Chrome. I'd still do what I said above...just open chromium without a WM, you can use google docs for word processor.