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msollins
January 18th, 2011, 09:46 PM
I wonder if anyone will take a stab at helping me with an install.
I have an old Toshiba laptop, 2415-S205. With just 256MB of RAM it runs Win XP, SP3 but just barely, i.e. very slow. So I thought I'd give Ubuntu a try.

I burned a CD with ubuntu-10.10-desktop-i386.iso.
I boot up the laptop and I get as far as the screen that lets me choose between "trying" and "installing" Ubuntu. I click on "install" (since I'm not interested in continuing to try to run XP) and the cursor changes to the little circle with moving dots to indicate activity. But after a few seconds all activity ceases. No more moving dots, no hard drive or CD activity.

I've tried this several times with the same result although once I got to the next screen which gave me choice of using the network (ethernet cable *is* plugged in) to get updates as I install. I decided not to check the box. But it hung this time too.

I burned a 2nd CD just in case but this behaves the same.

What about the release I'm trying to install? Should I have found a release specific to this Toshiba machine?

Any help would be appreciated.

gordintoronto
January 18th, 2011, 11:46 PM
With 256 MB, use Lubuntu.

oldfred
January 19th, 2011, 12:37 AM
Several other alternatives:

Install to old Toshiba
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1634538

Lighter weight Versions use with Chromium browser as it is lighter than firefox:
http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/minimal
Light Linux Distributions - Hardware Testing (RAM)
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1582027
Lubuntu, which uses the LXDE desktop environment, targeted at "normal computers" with 128 MB
Xubuntu, a "lightweight" distribution based on the Xfce desktop environment or add LXDE desktop (is not lubuntu)
with Gnumeric and AbiWord by default
Crunchbang: the unofficial Ubuntu Lite
Someone posted this:
Linux Mint XFCE runs fine on a PIII, 500 MHz
8 of the best tiny Linux distros
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/operating-systems/8-of-the-best-tiny-linux-distros-683552
Slitaz, DSL, Puppy, Crunchbang, Slackware, Zenwalk, Vector

ronnielsen1
January 19th, 2011, 12:43 AM
If you upgraded the memory on this box you could run whatever you want. If not then try antiX (http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page), one of the best lighter weight distros