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asifnaz
December 7th, 2014, 06:50 PM
It is from 1999 . Still working fine . It is pentium MMX with 64 MB ram . I am using Syllable OS on it .What OS would you
install on this Laptop..?

PondPuppy
December 7th, 2014, 08:31 PM
Very nice. I had not heard of Syllable before -- thank you!

Puppy Linux has been run with as little as 40 mb RAM, I think, but it sounds like the user did a non-standard installation with an old version. You might be better off sticking with Syllable!

PondPuppy
December 7th, 2014, 09:03 PM
Whoops, where is my brain?
Minix runs on low-spec hardware: http://www.minix3.org/
KolibriOS is even smaller, and it's an effort that amazes me: http://kolibrios.org/en/ But I don't know that it runs very many applications.

tgalati4
December 8th, 2014, 01:58 AM
I have an HP Omnibook of 1996 vintage with 32MB of RAM running Damn Small Linux. Tiny Core Linux would be a more current equivalent.

asifnaz
December 8th, 2014, 04:58 AM
I have something for 90s computers . May be because I was teenager in 90s and could not afford them . I remember on my way to school I used to stare at those amazing windows 98 PC which I came across . I have a Laptop with latest hardware but I still like to play with those older machines .

cesarvilla9421
December 10th, 2014, 04:00 AM
Xubuntu.

sammiev
December 10th, 2014, 05:13 AM
Xubuntu.

Likely a little heavy for the OP.

asifnaz
December 10th, 2014, 06:19 AM
Likely a little heavy for the OP.

I dont think that laptop can Xbuntu with GUI

cAzJJBx
December 13th, 2014, 01:23 AM
I'd probably run Tiny Core Linux or Puppy Linux on it. Syllable OS and KolibriOS look interesting though.

zealibib slaughter
December 13th, 2014, 02:25 AM
I'd try to do to it what I've done with an old desktop I had once, which is a very stripped down debian install running openbox for a gui and relying on mostly cli and x windows tools.

help_me2
December 13th, 2014, 05:00 AM
It's cool that you're able to keep that laptop breathing, but for me, if I can't run the latest stuff, it won't serve any real purpose other than to say "look at this old laptop still working!" I would donate it or recycle it.

RabbitWho
December 13th, 2014, 11:42 AM
I use a 1999 IBM Aptiva when I'm at home. I had Spri linux / icebuntu on it because I couldn't get the wireless to work with Puppy. Unfortunately it isn't available any more.





It's cool that you're able to keep that laptop breathing, but for me, if I can't run the latest stuff, it won't serve any real purpose other than to say "look at this old laptop still working!" I would donate it or recycle it.

Don't you remember 1999? Computers were already able to do a lot! You just have to do one thing at a time and use old versions of programs.

DuckHook
December 15th, 2014, 05:02 AM
Syllable is pretty slick, but its community is small so apps are limited. For this same reason, most alternate OSes are curiosities more than working OSes. It's a shame. In the old days, there was more variety, but the IT world has become mature and dominated by just a few major players.

For further curiosities, try OS/2, ReactOS, Icaros (might be too heavy for your HW), Haiku, Minix, even Hurd. Of them all Icaros is the most full featured with some actually decent apps available. Haiku is really cool. My favourite "look". Try them out if you like, but just be warned that they will never be anything more than "curiosities".

To get anything resembling an actual working machine, I think you have to stick with the larger communities, and effectively, that means Linux. I have found Tiny Core to be an amazing and truly tiny little OS that actually works on old HW. If your HW goes back to positively ancient times, Damn Small may be your best bet due to an odd fact: its developer dropped it years ago and it hasn't been maintained since. This gives it the ironic advantage of having very old drivers compiled into its kernel, drivers that have since been purged from modern kernels due to obsolescence and cannot be found anymore, even as modules. I've been able to get old oddball HW working on Damn Small that I can't get to work on any modern kernel. Your machine is old but it isn't ancient, so I'm going to recommend my favourite micro-GUI, SliTaz.

They're all available for the price of a download and most run as LiveCDs, so give them a whirl and let us know which you like the most.

Good Luck!

Mike_Walsh
December 19th, 2014, 02:37 PM
My 'baby' (!) is an elderly Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, from 2002. It originally had a 'Netburst'-generation Celeron (recently upgraded to a P4), and came with 128 MB RAM.....and Win XP, which ran like molasses on it. She now has 1 GB RAM, and is running Puppy Linux 'TahrPup' 6.0. This is is the only Puppy that will run on it; I've tried older versions, but they all balk at the 'awkward' graphics card (Intel 'Extreme' Graphics (82845 G/GL/GE/PE/GV)...

I tried Lubuntu; it ran, but the screen was stuck at 640x480, jammed up into the corner of the display. Curiously, the windows were still full-size, so a lot of GUI buttons weren't able to display; which made it essentially useless. I've only kept her because she's got the best keyboard and touchpad I've found in a lappie.

TahrPup has rescued her from the scrapheap, and restored her to a useful and productive life.

Regards,

Mike.

carlwsnyder
December 20th, 2014, 03:31 AM
I have a similar laptop which I have installed on its 1G hard drive, variously, Damn Small Linux, Wary Puppy Linux, or a minimal install of Debian Linux (just basically CLI tools and Firefox). Slitaz may also work, but I haven't tried other than those first 3. Don't expect to open more than one tab on the browser or to add a lot of browser add-ons. Don't expect Flash-plugin or OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice to work at all.

Mike_Walsh
December 20th, 2014, 05:27 PM
I have a similar laptop which I have installed on its 1G hard drive, variously, Damn Small Linux, Wary Puppy Linux, or a minimal install of Debian Linux (just basically CLI tools and Firefox). Slitaz may also work, but I haven't tried other than those first 3. Don't expect to open more than one tab on the browser or to add a lot of browser add-ons. Don't expect Flash-plugin or OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice to work at all.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get 'Wary' to work on it; the display was all broken up and fragmented, but.....'TahrPup' saved the day. Could be something to do with the 3.14-20 kernel it uses; apart from LightHouse & FatDog, I think it's the only one that uses a '3'-series kernel. (?)

I've been thinking about trying 'Damn Small Linux'; is it any good? What's Dillo like to use; and most importantly, which of the .iso files on the ibiblio website do you actually download? Is it the 50 MB one?

Regards,

Mike.

carlwsnyder
January 4th, 2015, 10:25 PM
I ran DSL on the old laptop, but the target user didn't like the interface. 4.4.3 ran fine on the 50Mb .iso but upgradeable? Not that I noticed. Dillo worked fine for me testing it, but no tabs and absolutely no flash support. As far as the .iso file, ftp://distro.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/damnsmall/current/dsl-4.4.10.iso would be the standard live/installation disk, and alternatives in the same ftp:// folder for embedded (mainly headless) motherboard applications, syslinux boot (mainly for Lilo or alternative boot loaders or for install on a Windows FAT file system), initrd RAM disk boot (I would not recommend this with less than 128M RAM, but may work with 96M), and vmx VMWare virtual machine installation.

Mike_Walsh
January 5th, 2015, 02:30 AM
I've given SliTaz 4.0 a try; works a treat on the LiveCD, but do you think I can get it to actually install? Every time I try (and this is following the instructions in the Taz Package Installer for installation to a flash drive), it keeps coming up with 'system files not found'; so, although I like it, I've given up on it for now. Shame really, because you can install Firefox 17 ESR (which is STILL supported, believe it or not), and also an old version of Iron.....which is supposed to be a more secure version of Chrome, from the distro's repositories.

Tried KolibriOS as well; now, THAT is FUN! (Note the word used; I didn't say 'useful'...) You can't actually do anything with it, apart from trying to play the in-built games ( and half of those don't respond). It has a very 'minimal' browser, which does precisely nothing; but you can install the COOLEST pair of eyes onto the desktop.....which follow your cursor around, all over the screen; great fun. But, unless you happen to be interested in assembly language programming..... (!!)

And if you want to be able to read the settings, you've got to translate it from Russian..!

I think, as DuckHook says, they'll never be any more than curiosities. I've even had a look at ReactOS; but who on earth wants a re-compiled Windows '95? I know I was glad to see the back of it, nearly 20 years ago..!

Regards,

Mike.