|
Vintage Computers Any vintage computer systems, calculators, video games etc., but with an emphasis on 1980s and earlier equipment. |
|
Thread Tools |
9th Nov 2007, 8:52 pm | #1 |
Rest in Peace
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: North West Northamptonshire, UK.
Posts: 346
|
Which Linux operating system?
I have recently obtained three Compaq Armarda 1700 laptops in very good condition, fitted with 5Gigabyte hard drives, Pentium 2-300 processors and only 32 Megabytes of memory. I have a 128 Mb upgrade. The original O/S was Windows 95, but has been erased.
I would like to install one of the flavours of Linux. Would the learned members of the forum please recomend any particular version.? Open Office would be required. Regards ALAN |
10th Nov 2007, 9:09 am | #2 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Skelleftea, Sweden
Posts: 250
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
openoffice on 32M?? are you JOKING? 128 MINIMUM for that monster to run anything close to smooth, likely CPU will be ok but...
If you must try, a trimmed down version of latest Debian with iceWM or blackbox as windowmanagers. trimmed down Slackware12 with same WM's are another option. both preferably with a custom kernel and any memory upgrade ou can muster. perhaps puppy linux or DSL. I personally use Slackware 12 and Debian on 233MHz and 350MHz systems (even a 100MHz laptop), but not for Open Office, it is too hungry for memory. |
10th Nov 2007, 9:19 am | #3 | |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Skelleftea, Sweden
Posts: 250
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
Quote:
I answered a similar Question few years ago on a Swedish Linux forum (linux on a low end laptop), I posted a list there of the Slackware and Debian packages I had installed. I will post those lists here in a while. they are not up to date but should give a hint. /EDIT |
|
10th Nov 2007, 9:43 am | #4 | |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Skelleftea, Sweden
Posts: 250
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
The Debian part is no more (sorry) but i put a tiny Slackware here.
add WM of choice and x. Quote:
|
|
10th Nov 2007, 10:57 am | #5 |
Octode
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Newbury, Berkshire, UK.
Posts: 1,770
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
I largely agree with the above. Even 128MB +32MB is marginal for the latest Open Office. You could find it annoyingly slow.
I'm guessing that you you don't really want to engage in an inordinately large amount of "pling backslash" from the command line. You could try Ubuntu Lite :- http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Syste...te-16485.shtml
__________________
Chris |
10th Nov 2007, 1:10 pm | #6 |
Heptode
Join Date: May 2004
Location: Ellington, Northumberland, UK.
Posts: 815
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
Damn Small works fine on a much slower laptop here, that one has 16Mb of RAM and a sub-200MHz cpu.
__________________
John. |
10th Nov 2007, 8:46 pm | #7 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Mar 2007
Location: Skelleftea, Sweden
Posts: 250
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
I just remembered, ABI word can do much of the things that OO can, not nearly everything but... and it is less hungry for memory.
EDIT I know LINUX will run on that laptop. I have a compaq 5150 with 64M ram that runs Slackware 12, the downfall was OpenOffice. /EDIT Last edited by OErjan_S; 10th Nov 2007 at 9:00 pm. |
10th Nov 2007, 11:18 pm | #9 | |
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,788
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
Quote:
At the end of that I had a fully standard Debain Sarge installation with a proper Fluxbox GUI that ran *very* well on a P200 with 96MB. In fact the OS itself will run fine in 32MB though big apps like the Firefox browser won't. DSL comes with fully functional WP, spreadsheet and email apps which are very light on resources. You can install Abiword which has better MS Office compatibility and still runs reasonably well with limited hardware. As others have said, OO uses a *lot* of computrons and will be slow on a 300MHz CPU even with plenty of memory. If you decide to try DSL, I would advise using the last 3 version (3.6 I think) as 4.0 is a major redesign with some problems still to be ironed out. http://www.damnsmalllinux.org Good luck, Paul |
|
23rd Dec 2007, 11:09 pm | #10 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Feb 2007
Location: Fordingbridge, Hampshire, UK.
Posts: 56
|
Re: Which Linux operating system?
Another one to try -- puppy linux .
ljones |