Linux for old laptop?

[Chu Jeang Tan]

My friend has the following laptop:
CPU: Pentium 2 266MHz
Memory: 256MB
Hard drive: 4gb

How would you setup a usable Linux system on this? It should be able
to run web browser, open office suite, IM, play MP3, various video
formats.

Is Fedora a good choice for low powered system?

I'd think gnome may be too heavyweight WM and KDE might be a better option.

Note that this is for a novice and probably would prefer to configure
stuffs through UI rather than text editors.

[Fred Smith]

On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 10:31:47AM -0500, Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> My friend has the following laptop:
> CPU: Pentium 2 266MHz
> Memory: 256MB
> Hard drive: 4gb
>
> How would you setup a usable Linux system on this? It should be able
> to run web browser, open office suite, IM, play MP3, various video
> formats.
>
> Is Fedora a good choice for low powered system?
>
> I'd think gnome may be too heavyweight WM and KDE might be a better option.
>
> Note that this is for a novice and probably would prefer to configure
> stuffs through UI rather than text editors.

While it may be possib le toi nstall FC6 or 7 on such a machine, it
would be very tight for disk space, very SLOOOOOOWWWWW, and overall
painful to use.

You may want to look at small distributions like Puppy Linux or DSL (Damn Small Linux).

[Wade Hampton]

I put knoppix on my PIII/366 laptop with 128M RAM and it is usable.
DSL would also be a good choice.  From my experience, Fedora is too
heavy, but a while back there was the RULE project to install/run it
on small footprint systems.

Cheers,
--
Wade Hampton

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Wed, 2007-03-28 at 11:35 -0400, fredex wrote:
> On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 10:31:47AM -0500, Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> > My friend has the following laptop:
> > CPU: Pentium 2 266MHz
> > Memory: 256MB
> > Hard drive: 4gb
> >
> > How would you setup a usable Linux system on this? It should be able
> > to run web browser, open office suite, IM, play MP3, various video
> > formats.
> >
> > Is Fedora a good choice for low powered system?
> >
> > I'd think gnome may be too heavyweight WM and KDE might be a better option.
> >
> > Note that this is for a novice and probably would prefer to configure
> > stuffs through UI rather than text editors.
>
> While it may be possib le toi nstall FC6 or 7 on such a machine, it
> would be very tight for disk space,

No. The critical component would be memory (RAM), not diskspace.
> very SLOOOOOOWWWWW, and overall painful to use.

Open office will always be painful on with such little RAM ;)

Ralf

[Chu Jeang Tan]

Looks like it'll be painful to use FC in this laptop? Even for bare
minimum install and then just add KDE?

Alternatively, I've had great experience with lean Slackware
installations, except that it takes more effort to get things up to
date. Usually just FTP download the updates and manually installing
them.

On 3/28/07, Ralf Corsepius  wrote:
> On Wed, 2007-03-28 at 11:35 -0400, fredex wrote:
> > On Wed, Mar 28, 2007 at 10:31:47AM -0500, Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> > > My friend has the following laptop:
> > > CPU: Pentium 2 266MHz
> > > Memory: 256MB
> > > Hard drive: 4gb
> > >
> > > How would you setup a usable Linux system on this? It should be able
> > > to run web browser, open office suite, IM, play MP3, various video
> > > formats.
> > >
> > > Is Fedora a good choice for low powered system?
> > >
> > > I'd think gnome may be too heavyweight WM and KDE might be a better option.
> > >
> > > Note that this is for a novice and probably would prefer to configure
> > > stuffs through UI rather than text editors.
> >
> > While it may be possib le toi nstall FC6 or 7 on such a machine, it
> > would be very tight for disk space,
>
> No. The critical component would be memory (RAM), not diskspace.
> > very SLOOOOOOWWWWW, and overall painful to use.
>
> Open office will always be painful on with such little RAM ;)
>
> Ralf
>
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list

[Ralf Corsepius]

On Wed, 2007-03-28 at 11:04 -0500, Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> Looks like it'll be painful to use FC in this laptop?

That's too strict, ...
> Even for bare minimum install and then just add KDE?

... this is the point: Running KDE, openoffice and "playing videos" are
"heavy-weight" tasks.

Running and using them on such a machine is technically possible, but
won't be "real fun" and won't be "lightning-fast".
> Alternatively, I've had great experience with lean Slackware
> installations, except that it takes more effort to get things up to
> date. Usually just FTP download the updates and manually installing
> them.

What I said above isn't limited to Fedora. The issues are independent of
a particular distro - The problems will be similar on all distros,
because the issues are these applications'
demands/resource-requirements.

If I were you, simply try it to get an impression.

Ralf

[Chris Jones]

Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> Looks like it'll be painful to use FC in this laptop? Even for bare
> minimum install and then just add KDE?

KDE really would not be a good choice, its about the same sort of 
'weight' as gnome really.

I would suggest a much more minimal desktop, say XFCE or FVWM ?

Won't help with running OO as others have pointed out - That does need 
considerable ram.

Chris

[Claude Jones]

On Wed March 28 2007 11:31:47 am Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> My friend has the following laptop:
> CPU: Pentium 2 266MHz
> Memory: 256MB
> Hard drive: 4gb
>
> How would you setup a usable Linux system on this? It should
> be able to run web browser, open office suite, IM, play MP3,
> various video formats.
>
> Is Fedora a good choice for low powered system?
>
> I'd think gnome may be too heavyweight WM and KDE might be a
> better option.
>
> Note that this is for a novice and probably would prefer to
> configure stuffs through UI rather than text editors.
>
> --
> Chu Jeang Tan
> [e-mail]

Have done this quite a bit - my choices would be MepisLite, 
DreamLinux, or dynebolic; I've got MepisLite running on a 
similar machine right now, Micron P2 266/256MB ram, and it runs 
just fine, though I don't suggest using OpenOffice. DreamLinux 
is supposed to run well on older machines, and I've used it on a 
P3 450MHz w/ 384 MB ram,  which ran quite well; dynebolic is 
supposed to do well on older machines, but I've only run it on 
more modern platforms - it's a bit more work to get it installed 
to the hard drive and booting, but, it's a neat distro for 
media-content creatives...

[Chu Jeang Tan]

I've installed DreamLinux. For some reason it drops me off at an
unconfigured GRUB prompt and I can't boot it up.

Later on installed Xubuntu over it, and it works great so far. In the
beginning it booted up with only 640x480. It turned out that Ubuntu's
default refresh rate is not compatible with the LCD screen. A
non-linux person would have been stumped here for quite a while. I
think Redhat has gui tools for setting up the monitor type properly.

On 3/28/07, Claude Jones  wrote:
> On Wed March 28 2007 11:31:47 am Chu Jeang Tan wrote:
> > My friend has the following laptop:
> > CPU: Pentium 2 266MHz
> > Memory: 256MB
> > Hard drive: 4gb
> >
> > How would you setup a usable Linux system on this? It should
> > be able to run web browser, open office suite, IM, play MP3,
> > various video formats.
> >
> > Is Fedora a good choice for low powered system?
> >
> > I'd think gnome may be too heavyweight WM and KDE might be a
> > better option.
> >
> > Note that this is for a novice and probably would prefer to
> > configure stuffs through UI rather than text editors.
> >
> > --
> > Chu Jeang Tan
> > [e-mail]
>
> Have done this quite a bit - my choices would be MepisLite,
> DreamLinux, or dynebolic; I've got MepisLite running on a
> similar machine right now, Micron P2 266/256MB ram, and it runs
> just fine, though I don't suggest using OpenOffice. DreamLinux
> is supposed to run well on older machines, and I've used it on a
> P3 450MHz w/ 384 MB ram,  which ran quite well; dynebolic is
> supposed to do well on older machines, but I've only run it on
> more modern platforms - it's a bit more work to get it installed
> to the hard drive and booting, but, it's a neat distro for
> media-content creatives...
>
> --
> Claude Jones
> Brunswick, Md, USA
>
> --
> fedora-list mailing list
> [e-mail]
> To unsubscribe: https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-list