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mebomechanicno1
July 14th, 2010, 06:00 PM
Over the years I have acquired a collection of Toshiba Librettos; indeed at least one of each ever sold in the UK. I am aware of the various web sites written by people who have installed linux on a libretto, but these all seem to relate to around the turn of the century (HAH! never thought I'd get to say that!). Does anyone have recent experience of installing a reasonably 'modern' linux distro on one of these old machines; and if so what distro do you suggest, and do you have any other advice ("don't", does spring instantly to mind). Variously they are running windows 3.1, 95, 98 and one has 2000 on it.

Rubi1200
July 14th, 2010, 08:12 PM
Hi,
I think you need to readjust your thinking about what you want to install on these dinosaurs (I just used Wikipedia haha).

My suggestions are the following:

Ubuntu Alternate CD: http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/alternative-download#alternate

Xubuntu (maybe): http://www.xubuntu.org/

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

Slitaz (although my experiences with it were not good): http://www.slitaz.org/en/

Hope this helps.

You can also look here for some more options:

http://distrowatch.com/

mebomechanicno1
July 15th, 2010, 12:05 AM
The problem is that they are truly beautiful little machines that deserve a lot better than Windows. I know they need a very light O/S, but I don't know enough about linux to say which distro might work.

Rubi1200
July 15th, 2010, 04:24 AM
Many people, including here on the forums, swear by Puppy Linux as a lightweight OS, but there are others.

Does the Libretto have a CD-ROM drive?

What you could do is download and try it as a LiveCD and see if everything works before deciding to install.

mebomechanicno1
July 15th, 2010, 10:50 AM
They use an early form of PCMIA card to drive a floppy, and I have used an external cd drive, but on those occasions when i have had to reload Windows i have sat there with 14 floppies feeding them in through the floppy drive, so I suspect quite a bit of experimenting is required but contrary to my usual practice (open the box and throw away the instructions before proceeding) I have decided to look at this from every angle I can think of before risking burning one out!