Linux for old pc?

barnettgs

barnettgs

barnettgs

Soldato
Joined
22 Jan 2005
Posts
2,831
Location
N Ireland
I have got 433 Celeron PC with 128mb RAM from a friend. Running Windows 98SE on it was impressive and quick. However, I wanted to tried out 'modern' operation system for free so I have tried Ubu, Slackware (well, not really!) and the Damn Small Linux.

I tired Ubu out at first using live CD but it was too much for underpowered system to run, then I tried DSL, too basic and doesn't work with ethernet card then Slackware, it has very complicated install but I did the partitioning, full system install and then in the end, it didn't detect operation system at boot up! :rolleyes:

There is few things about Linux that is bugging me!

1) Why need more than two or three CDs to install when you could do with 1 CD of Windows XP?

2) Slower to run than XP on same system!

3) Why did they made it difficult to install with lots of unnecessary options? Especially with Slackware!

4) No 1680 x 1050 screen support?

I also tried SLAX, I like the clean interface of SLAX but had a screen align problem on my Dell 20" monitor but shame that it is not for installing OS.

Is there any disto out there that has GUI of SLAX and comes with Firefox & Openoffice, capable of running on old PC and easy to install?!
 
Any distro will run on that PC :) just depends how much eye candy you want.
anyway just to answer you questions quickly. Your problem with the ubuntu live cd running so slow was probably down to the 128mb of ram

1 - Ubuntu does only come on one cd, most distro's will come prepacked with numorous utilitys that some others dont (openoffice, countless media players, different web browsers etc)
2 - Well that depends which GUI you use, KDE/Gnome are somewhat bloated if you want speed then you should tryout blackbox
3 - Customisation, windows will install a lot of junk you will probably never need or never know its there, with ubuntu you just need to select a few options and it will do the rest
4 - There probably is, just a case of editing the xorg.conf file

Slax i think (ive never used it) uses KDE as a GUI, so you could try Kubuntu out. :)
 
Thumbs up here for Kubuntu. will run slow on that system when you are in the LiveCD but once you install it then it should be fine.
I had it running on a 128Mb RAM machine for a while with minimal problems
 
I am looking for an operating system for an old PC too.

P3 600Mhz
512MB SD RAM
20GB HDD
16MB Graphics.

Not looking for any eyecandy at all, just web browsing and office use.

Would you recommend Kubuntu for that?
 
Conrad11 said:
Whats the difference between the two?
Click to expand...
The only difference is the desktop environment - Kubuntu uses the very popular KDE, whereas Xubuntu uses Xfce. By default, Ubuntu uses the Gnome desktop environment.
 
Ok, just realised I have only used one CD of slackware! :o Found out you need to use 5 CDs to install stackware?! :eek: I just remembered that I saw 5 ISO on download list but I went away downloading the only first one thinking slackware is light version of linux...but I thought slackware is ideal for older PC? :confused:

However, I'm going to try out Xubuntu anyway.
 
Ok, just come back from playing with xubuntu...first thing, it runs great on 433mhz celeron system! Very impressive. Though, there is no trash bin and no 'personal' folder to save documents?

Firefox's great too and it is quick enough but it is 1.5 so I have downloaded latest 2.0 version for Linux...and how am I supposed to install it?! Time for more hair scratching!

I was kind of expecting the experience to be similar to Windows like add/remove program but then, is that normal with all the linux distros? I am beginning to feel like I am wasting my time with this linux OS who doesn't want to do the work for you!
 
mortals said:
I thought KDE used loads of resources :confused:

stuff like fluxbox etc would use less, but guess it depends on the user.
Click to expand...

KDE more then Gnome.
Fluxbox is awesome.

I use Arch Linux on a PIII 500Mhz Coppermine 128SDRAM 2.5NeoMagic256AV...
Runs faster then Win98SE, so I don't use that anymore. I can use Gnome/KDE with ease, but generally use XFCE or Fluxbox due to the small screen.

above guy said:
I was kind of expecting the experience to be similar to Windows like add/remove program but then, is that normal with all the linux distros? I am beginning to feel like I am wasting my time with this linux OS who doesn't want to do the work for you!"
Click to expand...

Ubuntu has Synaptic for installing and removing stuff. Or alternatively you can use $sudo apt-get install firefox (or upgrade/update, whatever it is).
 
Is it possible to get drivers for wireless Belkin network cards?

Also, does Xubuntu allow you to add hardware after you have installed, or do you have to reinstall when you add hardware?
 
Last edited:
Conrad11 said:
Is it possible to get drivers for wireless Belkin network cards?
Click to expand...
Yeah, the belkin network cards are a bit of a pain to get working, but there a loads of tutorials on Ubuntuforums.org. You can use the windows drivers + a program called ndiswrapper to get them installed for ubuntu.
 
Seems a bit slow, especially the graphics, for instance, when scrolling it seems very slow.

Anything i can do to speed this up...don't need any of the 'fancies'

Thanks.
 
It runs a lots slower from the live CD. I sat watching my friend play around with it, took her ages to do simplest of things. As soon as I got hold of the CD, I went straight ahead and installed it without messing around with the live CD. Runs so smoothly and only problem I've had with it so far was due to my wireless card (which got sorted after reading some tutorials).

I'm thinking of converting fully to Ubuntu when I get enough time on my hands. Have no real need for Windows at the minute. (Will probably leave a small windows partition just in case) :)

Edit: To answer your question, I'm not aware of anything that will make the live CD run any faster than it does :cool:
 
Conrad11 said:
I am talking about an install.

I am running from the hdd not live cd.

PC Specs:
P3 600Mhz
512MB SD RAM
20GB Seagate Hdd
16MB AGP Card
Click to expand...
Oh, my bad. In that case I haven't got the foggiest i'm afraid:(
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom