Which OS?

clv101

clv101

clv101

Soldato
Joined
18 Oct 2002
Posts
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Location
Bristol
Can anyone recommend an OS for an old laptop. ~400MHz PIII, maybe only 128MB, ~20GB HDD.

I'm thinking some version of Linux. It just needs to be as slick (minimalist) as possible, run a web browser and Open Office. There's no built in LAN, just a PCMCIA card 10/100 card (which I think is the "Intel Xircom CreditCard Ethernet 10/100BT + Modem 56 Network / Modem Combo".
 
There are a few distro's out there that offer pre-built desktops for low end systems like puppy linux, etc but they all have some pretty bad flaws, alternatively if you don't mind making a few choices for yourself and reading some pretty straight forward instructions there is ArchLinux which will install a basic linux system with no GUI and if you follow through the beginners guide will let you build up a system in about an hour that is as minimal or as complex as you would like.

For a low end machine especially with that little RAM I would recommend using the lxde desktop package, incredibly low system requirements for such a complete package.

ArchLinux Beginners guide
 
You can also get a compile of Fedora 12 using LXDE. If you don't fancy going down the Arch route. Or you could give Knoppix a go too, which also uses LXDE.
 
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You should look at slitax, damn small linux, puppy, crunchbang.

If you want to learn a lot about linux and how your linux system works go with arch linux.
 
I've been testing Lubuntu with 192MB ram for an old spec lappy of mine, it runs just fine and gives you a more "normal" user experience over some of the micro-distributions like Puppy though I wouldn't say anything against them but they aren't something I'd like to use on a regular basis.
 
I was playing about with an old laptop from work, p3 600 odd and I had problems getting puppy and dsl to work. Mainly down to whatever crappy graphics card was in this thing, but crunchbang worked first time, without any problems.
 
Thanks for all the feedback. From looking at a few sites, I'm going to give Lubuntu a go, but wait for the final release of 10.04. No rush.
 
I really didn't rate Crunchbang on my laptop. It ran nicely etc., but I just think OpenBox is far more suited to a desktop machine. Granted, I could have changed the UI over - But then I may as well of just gone for Ubuntu.
 
Tbh even on my "super" AMD Phenom II 965, 4 GB DDR3 RAM, GTX260 Arch linux is noticably quicker than Win7, Ubuntu, opensuse etc.

It's very impressive but need some knowledge/ability to read beginners guide to set it up.
 
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