I have an old laptop....

[MikeDX]

Ok heres the deal

I have an old laptop, we are talking proper old, not 800mhz old.

its a Pentium 100mhz with a 2mb gfx card and about 16mb ram. currently running windows 95.. SLOWLY (or is it windows 98... I cant remember)

Anyways i dont want this laptop to go to the junkyard so I want to install linux on it and make use of it. Ok so it will be slow but the screen is good.

so what do you reckon folks...

will xubuntu run? or shall I be looking at something slightly different. I would like a window manager installed and it would be handy to have msn/office available on there.

:lolflag:

[AndyCooll]

Such a spec may well require a lighter distro such as Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux.

:cool:

[draynes]

I've got various distros of Linux on AMD K6 500 MHz boxes and a Pentium II 450 MHz box, each with 320M to 512M of RAM, and they're barely tolerable as far as being sluggish. I don't think any typical distro would work on that old laptop unless it was *very* specifically tailored to run on really minimal systems.

I have an old CompUSA Amerinote laptop with a 400 MHz Celeron-something CPU, 96M of RAM, and a 3 gig hard drive. It runs W98SE sluggishly but acceptably well, and I wouldn't really consider trying to run Linux on it with a GUI installed. It might work well enough with just a text console interface, but that's only for real bit twisters.

[ixus_123]

puppy is great - I'd use that on it.

or you could use it as a personal web server to run wordpress. Not quite sure how it would cope but that's what I use my 366mhz laptop for & it seems to cope well enough.

I thought the slow (4,200rpm) hard disk would slow it down but & it might on searches & stuff like that but the main limiting factor is my upload speed (350kbps is the best I've had)

Have a look, see what you think
http://kieren.demon.co.uk/wordpress/

[dannyboy79]

i have a pentium mmx 266mhz with 128mb ram which runs Xubuntu alright. I use Opera as my browser as Firefox was way to slow! Also, splyheed claws as the email client as Evolution was way to slow also. You could always do the Xubuntu server install and then install a lighter window manager like fluxbox or icewm. check them out. I have used Puppy from a live cd and also I use DSL from qemu in windows. they are both alright.

[7h35ur930n]

Please dont take this the wrong way beacuse it isnt meant that way...why dont you buy Linux mag which comes with loads of different distros, the last have like one person said above puppy or dam small on it, backtrack for install, maybe use it as a test machine. the only way i think you learn is to do it yourself and write about what you experienced, the machine sounds like it will get kernal panic with any latest distro :( dam the world.

keep me updated to what you put on it, it would be nice to find out :)

[prizrak]

I will go with others and advise DSL on it.

[PapaWiskas]

I would go with DSL.

[bodycoach2]

1st choice: DSL. 2nd choice: Puppy, 3rd choice: Fluxbuntu (if possible).

DSL is probably the only thing that will run on it.

If you get it working, PICTURES PLEASE!!!

[Onyros]

On that kind of hardware I wouldn't even recommend Damn Small... Go DeliLinux instead.

[K.Mandla]

Lowarch (http://www.lowarch.org/), if I had to pick for you. Be forewarned, you'll have to know the guts of your machine if you want to get it working. But if you do, it's going to zip along like a dual core. Sort of. :)

If it was a Pentium Pro I would say Arch, but you need an i686 for that, and I believe the slowest i686 was a 150Mhz Pentium Pro. So I'm guessing yours is the straight Pentium, and you'll need Lowarch.

[MikeDX]

Hey everybody

thanks for all of your replies

I'm going to dust the piece of crap down this weekend and see what we can run on it. I may have underspec'd it in which case I'll have more luck.

To be honest if i can get anything working it will be a miracle as its so old but I'm game for a challenge! I'll get pics of course :)

:guitar:

[ixus_123]

one benifit of DSL & Puppy is at not much over 100mb for the pair, you wont be downloading for long.

[PatrickMay16]

Ok heres the deal

I have an old laptop, we are talking proper old, not 800mhz old.

its a Pentium 100mhz with a 2mb gfx card and about 16mb ram. currently running windows 95.. SLOWLY (or is it windows 98... I cant remember)

Anyways i dont want this laptop to go to the junkyard so I want to install linux on it and make use of it. Ok so it will be slow but the screen is good.

so what do you reckon folks...

will xubuntu run? or shall I be looking at something slightly different. I would like a window manager installed and it would be handy to have msn/office available on there.

:lolflag:

You could try doing a sever install, and then installing X and some light window manager. Then maybe it would be useful for running abiword, and doing word processing on. Much nicer than taking an expensive laptop to college or so on... if it gets nicked, it doesn't matter anywhere near as much since it's so old.

[ixus_123]

might want to have plenty of tea & biscuits & a film(s) to watch while it installs becuase I imagine it will take some time.

The beauty of ditros like DSL & Puppy is that all teh applications are lightweight too - like Dillo for web browsing etc. Good luck with it - I can't wait to hear how it turns out

[siimo]

Keep windows 95 or whatever it is on it. Trust me if you intend to use *anything* graphical with linux then you need atleast 64mb memory. Unless you dig out a linux distro from 1996 (how old is linux again? did it exist back then? im not sure)

I have a old P166 32mb ram and it runs windows 95 / K-Meleon browser and MS Office 2000 sweet. Fast enough for my grandma.


You just wont be able to use anything in graphical with that much memory im afraid - even my 32mb ram beast struggled with anything other than a really ancient debian version called Potato. Way too much hassle - if you want a working system stick to windows 95 its the lightest graphical OS I have used - unless you use ancient linux which will come with extremely obsolete software.

If you want to be fairly happy with anything linux you do need 64-128mb even to run a really basic window manager.

People might flame me for this but I am sorry Dillo is not a usable browser - whereas K-Meleon is perfectly fine to use it uses a recent Mozilla rendering engine inside a native win32 app making it super speedy even on low end systems - guess what flash works fine on my system too in this browser.

[Foudre]

try slackware with xwindow slack ware is good for low mem, dsl may work beter, never tried it though

[cowlip]

How about running remote desktop from a more powerful machine? X's networking can be a big boost here.

[lakamsani]

Hi,

I have a an old Micron PC 400MHz Pentium (desktop n) with 256MB RAM (maxed out) and a graphics card with 4MB video memory, Thye graphics card is built into the mother board. I would like to use it as a backup desktop with mainly running browser based apps (google apps for example) plus printing and may be music. This is a 9 year old PC that I bought with Windows 98 then upgraded to Windows 2000. Over the years it seemed to get really slow. I reached a point where I had to either reinstall Windows 2000 (it won't upgrade to XP) or try Linux or just junk it.

I started with Ubuntu desktop 6.10. It starts to install but live CD is unable to show any graphics. Same behavior with Xubuntu CD. So I installed Ubuntu 6.10 server (edgy) and then did a "apt-get install xubuntu-desktop ". This installed the xubuntu desktop and started the X server for me. But I still can't starts the graphical window manager (startx from command line). Attached is my xrog.conf (xorg.conf.txt file attachment: had to renamed it so I can post here. message board does not accept .conf extension) as well as stdout/stderr from startx command ( Xorg.0.log.gz, compressed to stay under posting limit). The Xorg.0.log is from /var/log.

Let me know if there is anything I can tweak in xorg.conf to get this to work or if I should try Damn Small or some of such alternatives. (icewm, fluxbox?). I tried installing an external video card but neither Linux nor Windows is unable to see it.

[K.Mandla]

Try taking a look at the Installation/LowMemorySystems page in the wiki. That'll get you started with some very lightweight desktops.

[Mateo]

So.... what's the advantage of getting Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux vs. installing ubuntu with server installation, and then manually installing fluxbox and whatever else you want. If you do it that way you get to have ubuntu's excellent repositories, DEB files, etc.

[maniacmusician]

Damn Small and Puppy were created specifically for the purpose of running on slow machines.

Ubuntu Server was designed specifically for the purpose of...being a server.

[muguwmp67]

I'm just starting to get into revitalizing old machines.

I installed DSL last night on a 300 mhz thinkpad. It runs great, although I'm going to experiment with other distros. If your machine can boot from a Cd, download the (incredibly small) DSL live CD and give it a try.

A relative of mine has a 150mhz laptop that I plan to work with soon. I'm very curious to see what you come up with for yours. I was thinking of trying to set mine up as a wireless gateway, so I could have ethernet ports in my living room to connect my PS2.

[bash]

Ive got an old 300 mhz laptop. Has i think 16mb of ram. I managed to install Xubuntu on it. Well it runs. Kinda more or less. But its slow. Gonna try DSL now. And after that maybe puppy. Is DSL based on any other distro or is it a completly different flavor?

[xmastree]

I would also suggest DSL. I had a P166/32MB laptop, and it ran DSL just fine

http://xmastree.34sp.com/laptop/itworks.jpg

[Ubunted]

Wow. For such an old machine that thing sure looks like it's in great shape.

[Mateo]

Damn Small and Puppy were created specifically for the purpose of running on slow machines.

Ubuntu Server was designed specifically for the purpose of...being a server.

More specifically, what the advantages? I couldn't care less what the purpose of the design was. Unless Ubuntu server installation runs slower for some reason, I don't see why you wouldn't take that, since you get the Ubuntu repo system.

[muguwmp67]

Ubuntu server installs just the minimum packages needed. You add from there. He may not have known this.

[darkhatter]

I have an old laptop

I have a trash can, lets get together.

are you out of your mind?!?!??! 100mhz.....

I believe you can run starcraft on that so not everything is lost

[Mateo]

What ran on computers like that when they were top of the line? And is it possible to get those old OSes? is there like a really old version of gnome or something used to run on computers like that?

[muguwmp67]

DOS and windows 3.1 for machines up until 95. I used to have a copy of them on a packard bell cd. I looked for it recently and can't find mine though. I can't imagine where you'd be able to get a licensed copy of these programs, though they may be around in a torrent somewhere.

Doesn't matter though, if you don't have the original setup cd/floppies with the drivers on them, its probably easier to install linux on a laptop than DOS.

[darkhatter]

you can find windows 3.1 on the internet just download it, there is no pointing trying to find a legal copy. and I have a cd version and floppy version of OS/2 Warp version 3 so if you want that I can start a torrent for you.

[Mateo]

No, I'm sorry I wasn't very clear on the question. I mean, what were people who use linux running during the windows 95 era (the era of computers we are talking about in this thread).

And can you get those old linux OSes still.

[AndyCooll]

More specifically, what the advantages? I couldn't care less what the purpose of the design was. Unless Ubuntu server installation runs slower for some reason, I don't see why you wouldn't take that, since you get the Ubuntu repo system.

Since the purpose of the design was for older and slower pc's, the software selected has been chosen to enable optimum speed. You can probably do the same by installing all the relevent software following un Ubuntu Server install. However with DSL it has already been selected for you.

Secondly, DSL has already been optimised to use resources specifically with older pc's in mind. Server has been setup with server optimisations in mind. Again if you have the time you could probably optimise the server install too.

However, why re-invent the wheel? You can probably spend time and tweek most Linux distros to achieve what you want, however its much simpler just to choose a pre-compiled distro which has already been built with the purpose you want to achieve in mind.

:cool:

[Mateo]

However, why re-invent the wheel? You can probably spend time and tweek most Linux distros to achieve what you want, however its much simpler just to choose a pre-compiled distro which has already been built with the purpose you want to achieve in mind.

Because Ubuntu has superior repositories and uses DEB files.

I'd rather have to spend a week or so tweaking to get everything optimized than live with Damn Small Linux or Puppy Linux, where you probably have to compile everything from source.

[muguwmp67]

Think about what a laptop this old is going to be used for. Once you've selected the basics (web browser, editing, etc.), how often are you going to need to install new software?

I loaded dsl on a laptop last night, the install took a fraction of the time that my xubuntu install took.

I'm going to experiment with an ubuntu server install, to see how to make it work with ubuntu's repos, but I know its going to be slower, and I'm not sure I want to learn the black art of kernel recompilation yet.

[Mateo]

why would you have to compile the kernel?

[maniacmusician]

More specifically, what the advantages? I couldn't care less what the purpose of the design was. Unless Ubuntu server installation runs slower for some reason, I don't see why you wouldn't take that, since you get the Ubuntu repo system.

Well my point was, that yes, DSL will run faster than Ubuntu Server because everything about it is optimized for older hardware. Do I know what all of those changes are? No. But I know that it runs a hell of a lot faster


Ubuntu server installs just the minimum packages needed. You add from there. He may not have known this.

I do know it, but that still can't keep up with DSL

[MikeDX]

I have a trash can, lets get together.

are you out of your mind?!?!??! 100mhz.....

I believe you can run starcraft on that so not everything is lost

I like a challenge..

however if i fail ill need that trashcan....

:lolflag:

[muguwmp67]

why would you have to compile the kernel?

On an old machine like this one, it seems to me that to get maximum performance, you would want to pare down the list of drivers supported by the kernel. This would result in a smaller memory footprint, and thus more speed. Its not truly necessary, but it would be an optimization and every little bit helps with an antique machine.

[lakamsani]

I got ubuntu-desktop packages (including gnome, open office etc.) to work on my old Micron PC by doing the following.

1. There is a BIOS setting to tell the Micron PC to use the PCI video card instead of the one on the mother board.

2. experimenting with dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg. That command is pretty handy if you are having trouble with X.



Hi,

I have a an old Micron PC 400MHz Pentium (desktop n) with 256MB RAM (maxed out) and a graphics card with 4MB video memory, Thye graphics card is built into the mother board. I would like to use it as a backup desktop with mainly running browser based apps (google apps for example) plus printing and may be music. This is a 9 year old PC that I bought with Windows 98 then upgraded to Windows 2000. Over the years it seemed to get really slow. I reached a point where I had to either reinstall Windows 2000 (it won't upgrade to XP) or try Linux or just junk it.

I started with Ubuntu desktop 6.10. It starts to install but live CD is unable to show any graphics. Same behavior with Xubuntu CD. So I installed Ubuntu 6.10 server (edgy) and then did a "apt-get install xubuntu-desktop ". This installed the xubuntu desktop and started the X server for me. But I still can't starts the graphical window manager (startx from command line). Attached is my xrog.conf (xorg.conf.txt file attachment: had to renamed it so I can post here. message board does not accept .conf extension) as well as stdout/stderr from startx command ( Xorg.0.log.gz, compressed to stay under posting limit). The Xorg.0.log is from /var/log.

Let me know if there is anything I can tweak in xorg.conf to get this to work or if I should try Damn Small or some of such alternatives. (icewm, fluxbox?). I tried installing an external video card but neither Linux nor Windows is unable to see it.

[mdshann]

Since DSL is a Live CD first and foremost, it does not include package management or compiling tools, however you can install apt-get and I believe aptitude as well as the GNU toolchain once you have DSL installed to your hard drive. If I remember correctly DSL is based on knoppix for the Live CD portion and Debian for the rest, so yes you can still use DEBs, just not DEBs for ubuntu since DSL runs a 2.4 kernel.