best lightweight linux distro???

razertazer

razertazer

razertazer

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Hey
Ive recently acquired a IBM 365XD touchpad. Its ANCIENT, it has a 120mhz and 24mb ram. Its running 98, but i really want to change the OS

Any suggestions? ive tried DSL(damn small linux) but its even uglier than 98, and I didntlike the interface

Thanks a lot :)
 
That is rather ancient :p.

Of the extremely lightweight distros I quite like slitaz :), I guess it would be able to run on that spec. Puppy linux also gets good reviews but I'm not a fan of the UI.
 
Thanks :)
ive heard of both, but because the IBM can only boot from PCMCIA disk drive, its a lot of effort!

Thing is, i tried Slitaz on an old desktop of mine, it wouldnt boot. But on a modern-day laptop it does, I then found out you need about 200mb ram to run it :s

How do I know what the minimum spec of a linux OS is? you reckon puppy will run on it?
many thanks for the help
 
Run something veeeeeery simple on it, like Arch, and then build flux\black\openbox on it, that should *just* about be able to cope then. Good luck running anything apart from lynx and wget though... if you're lucky you may even be able to run a MUD! ;)
 
razertazer said:
Thanks :)
ive heard of both, but because the IBM can only boot from PCMCIA disk drive, its a lot of effort!

Thing is, i tried Slitaz on an old desktop of mine, it wouldnt boot. But on a modern-day laptop it does, I then found out you need about 200mb ram to run it :s

How do I know what the minimum spec of a linux OS is? you reckon puppy will run on it?
many thanks for the help
Click to expand...

Hmm, after a quick google it seems not:

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/MinReq

After looking round it appears that a distro called BasicLinux could run on it (link), but I have absolutely no idea of what it's like or even if the project is still active.

Sorry I can't be much help, best of luck :)
 
Thanks for the input guys!!

I think ill give basic linux a try. After all i only want basic word processing and web-browsing!

as a quick aside, why does it say "thug" under my name? im new to the whole forum thing :)
 
MasterPlan1 said:
Run something veeeeeery simple on it, like Arch, and then build flux\black\openbox on it, that should *just* about be able to cope then. Good luck running anything apart from lynx and wget though... if you're lucky you may even be able to run a MUD! ;)
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That looks good, nice one!
I couldnt find sceenshots for either OS though, would be good to see what theyre like before install.

where would i find screenshots? a quick google yeilded nothing :(
 
As I said in that last post - running an old dist would be your best bet, I remember a friend of mine running a similar laptop running either RH (when it still had a desktop version) and fluxbox and it coping alright, but I really wouldn't hope for much out of any of it, at best, it'd be a trip down memory lane, and a painful one to boot. ;)

But a quick hint of what flux looks like,

http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=fl...tle&resnum=4&ved=0CEUQsAQwAw&biw=1264&bih=765

Again, like the old versions of Debian, I'm sure you can find an old version of Fluxbox about with a bit of googling, it will be a pig to install though.
 
DSL hasn't been updated for years, and i'd issues with security running that and i wouldn't recommended an old version of Debian for the same reasons. You tried Crux Linux?

120MHz, is that even a PII? I assume it's not a main PC, it will just be for experimenting? In which case, might i suggest something without a GUI? Maybe Arch, Micro Core or NetBSD. If you want a GUI then look at Musca, tiling WM so it might take a bit of getting used to but...

http://kmandla.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/looking-close-at-memory-usage/
 
Once it was installed, gentoo would be the fastest option. However it might take months to install. Unless you compile on another computer that's probably a bad way to go.

I'm inclined to think arch or slack are the best choices, but I don't know what processor architecture that is and it's possible it's no longer supported by either.
 
JonJ678 said:
Once it was installed, gentoo would be the fastest option. However it might take months to install. Unless you compile on another computer that's probably a bad way to go.

I'm inclined to think arch or slack are the best choices, but I don't know what processor architecture that is and it's possible it's no longer supported by either.
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It definitely won't be i686 so arch isn't possible, and according to the slackware website at least 64MB of ram is required :(
 
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Knoppix if you are happy to boot from CD. With the specs above, you may struggle to run this. Try to find one of the earlier versions of this OS.
 
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.... The Thug under your name is related to your forum post count ... that's all..... and we all started out as "Thugs" as well :)

Think your going to be really pushed to get anything worthwhile running on the "old" Thinkpad. Even Slitaz, that's recommend for older machines, may not run on that really low spec
 
I'm sure you will find a decent old distro that will install. You want word processing? That shouldnt be an issue. Web browsing however will be a disaster. Modern websites will likely not render properly on very old browsers and flash is definitely out!. Modern browsers will probably be unusable due to the memory quantity. If you can get it to run at all then it will be a very annoying experience.
 
masterluke said:
I'm sure you will find a decent old distro that will install. You want word processing? That shouldnt be an issue. Web browsing however will be a disaster. Modern websites will likely not render properly on very old browsers and flash is definitely out!. Modern browsers will probably be unusable due to the memory quantity. If you can get it to run at all then it will be a very annoying experience.
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Elinks? :p
 
Superewza said:
Elinks? :p
Click to expand...

that is AWESOME.. got to have a play with that now :cool:

EDIT: Love it..

screenshotkk.jpg
 
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