Spec me a lighweight Distro please

Colbaker · 26 Aug 2014 at 12:40

Hi all,

I have an old lappie i am giving to my son, He only really goes on youtube and maybe plays a few flash games, Also likes to create slide shows in Publisher, Windows XP really grinds on the laptop so i was thinking maybe a Linux Distro will be better.

What one though?

Woden · 26 Aug 2014 at 12:47

Try the XFCE edition of Linux Mint.

CaptainCrash · 27 Aug 2014 at 00:02

The specs you mentioned in the Windows forum (1.6GHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, 60GB HDD) are pretty abysmal to be honest, and I reckon even a lightweight distro like Lubuntu is going to struggle. Also, Publisher (or do you mean Powerpoint?) won't run on Linux unless you use an emulator or run Windows in a virtual machine (out of the question on that hardware).

If you're going to get any sort of acceptable performance, you'll need to bump up the RAM at the very least, assuming you can find the right type at a sensible price. If I were you I'd be looking on Ebay for something like a secondhand Thinkpad T400 or Dell D630 - you can get them for well under £100 if you're patient, they're built like tanks and they'll handle any Linux distro or indeed Windows 7/8/8.1 very nicely.

Number_25 · 27 Aug 2014 at 01:36

CaptainCrash said:
The specs you mentioned in the Windows forum (1.6GHz Celeron, 256MB RAM, 60GB HDD) are pretty abysmal to be honest, and I reckon even a lightweight distro like Lubuntu is going to struggle. Also, Publisher (or do you mean Powerpoint?) won't run on Linux unless you use an emulator or run Windows in a virtual machine (out of the question on that hardware).

If you're going to get any sort of acceptable performance, you'll need to bump up the RAM at the very least, assuming you can find the right type at a sensible price. If I were you I'd be looking on Ebay for something like a secondhand Thinkpad T400 or Dell D630 - you can get them for well under £100 if you're patient, they're built like tanks and they'll handle any Linux distro or indeed Windows 7/8/8.1 very nicely.

I have Crunchbang Linux running on a laptop with a mere 128mb of RAM on it - runs a dream.

CaptainCrash · 27 Aug 2014 at 09:07

Number_25 said:
I have Crunchbang Linux running on a laptop with a mere 128mb of RAM on it - runs a dream.

My toaster runs like a dream without any RAM at all, but it won't play YouTube videos or run Publisher/Powerpoint.

It's a bit pointless to say an OS "runs like a dream" without specifying what applications you're running on top of it, what you're doing with them and how well they perform doing it. Any OS is just a means to an end, not an end in itself.

Colbaker · 27 Aug 2014 at 15:40

Thanks for the reply's guys, Im about to venture into the caverness abyss that is my loft as i am pretty sure i have some sodimms up there to upgrade the ram a little, maybe even a larger faster hdd.

Also i ran into a few issue's, Firstly the DVD rom does not work on this system, secondly the bios does not allow booting from USB, It's currently running windows XP, any suggestions?

Maybe pull the HDD out and throw it in a caddy, put it on my main lappie and do all the formatting and stick the iso/install programs on that?

Colbaker · 27 Aug 2014 at 23:54

Got a gig of RAM on its way to me now for £6, Hopefully the BIOS is compatible with 2 x 512Gb Sticks?

Also still have an issue with not knowing how to install linux when can't boot from USB or DVD, Any chance there is a way to do it through Windows XP? would i have to think about changing the Windows PArtition and adding a Lniux partition then putting the install files onto that?