Light Linux Distro

[jot-87]

Hi!
I have an old laptop which runs win98 kind of sluggish, so I'm lookin gfor a slim Linux distro. HW: 64MB ram, PII 266 MX, 4GB HD, I think you get the picture. What I want to be able to do on it is word processing, web browsing (with support for frames and perhaps even Flash), listen to music and maybe see films and share files over a MS network (samba). Quick/easy install is a BIG plus. So my question is:

Is there a small, light linux distro out there, just waiting for me to download, or am I better off by taking one of the "big" distros and installing only the light stuff? Either way: which distro?

All opinnions most welcome!

[duncanbojangles]

Slackware! (http://www.slackware.com)

And since you're computer is a little slow (Slackware will run on pretty much anything down to 33 MHz), I'd suggest not installing with KDE or Gnome. Without those, 4 GB is more than enough space, especially if you have a file server.

Slackware is very easy to install. Read the (short, concise) book on the web page and you'll be running in no time. Gentoo is really good for older computers too, but it tends to take longer and is a bit more difficult to install than Slackware.

[madcompnerd]

Slackware for sure, you actually have plenty of system to do all that. Although playing music while web browsing might push the limits.

[jot-87]

I was thinking fluxbox, XFCE or something along those lines. OK, so slackware might be an option then... Is Slackware OK to install even for the point-and-click computer generation? I've used Mandrake and SuSE before.

[Erikqwerty]

I sold a PC like that at a garage sale. Actually it was slower. 233. Anyway, I installed SuSe with KDE and booted it up. Ran useably fast. However, If I was going to use it I would install slack with no X.

[jot-87]

OK... Personaly, I need X. MOre conveniant for word processing and also I'm not the only one using it. I'm concidering Gentoo as well, because it sounds cool :) Are there any other pros and cons with slack or gentoo except the installations? And problems with configuration, X, etc?

[arkaine23]

Yoper with XFCE.

[CoffeeMan]

The big difference between Slack and Gentoo (other than the install) is that Slackware is not an optimized OS, it is precompiled. Gentoo is compiled from source, It takes longer than any install than you have probably ever seen, but of course, you will have a very efficient system, building an OS from the ground up will give you the full potential of that machine, Gentoo made my computer run about 1/3rd faster. It is good, stuff. But, for simplicity, stick with the good ol' Slack Pack. It's up to you.

[mrBen]

Having installed Gentoo on a PII 500 system, I have decided that it is not worth using Gentoo as your main system unless you have a faster system - the amount of time it takes to install anything will be too long to be efficient.

Personally I run Debian on all of my systems, from the 'lightest' to the heaviest.

[jot-87]

OK, Gentoo will have to wait. I've heard than in Slack you have to configure just about everything yourself, which makes it a little complicated... Is this true?
Yoper sounds cool... I'll give it a try!

[Jata]

I've just migrated from Red Hat 9.0 to Slackware 10.0 because I wanted more of a challenge and to be honest it's been a lot easier than I thought. I'm running fluxbox and it runs very well, a lot faster than Red Hat with gnome.
I also considered installing Gentoo but after 11 hours of compiling I gave up because I just couldn't see the performance gains justified all that compilation time.
Give Slackware a go, what's the worst that can happen?

BTW this is on an 800MHz Duron with 256MB RAM so bare that in mind for Gentoo and it's compiling!

[Lucas_Maximus]

i would go with slack, gentoo isnt that much faster, bnut then i only used gentoo and slack on a p3 and amd athlonXP systems.

u have to use a light X such as fluxbox or soemthing like that, XFCE might work okay though.

[jot-87]

OK, I might give slack a go... I need to be able to do it over the weekend though (have to have time to solve all the little problems that you might run in to as well). Still think Yoper sounds cool though :)

[jot-87]

Gah! Yoper doesn't work...

Unable to identify CD-ROM format.
no media
Checking /dev/scd0 ... no media
Checking /dev/scd1 ... no media
Checking /dev/scd2 ... no media
Checking /dev/scd3 ... no media
No YOS boot CD found!!!
Kernel panic: Attempt to kill init!

I'm going for something else, unless this is a problem which is easy to solve...

[arkaine23]

Never seen that happen. Have heard about some issues with certain distros when the cd-rom dirve is not on 1st IDE channel of the motherboard... or do you maybe have some kind of scsi cd-rom?

Perhaps you should add a boot parameter at the prompt-

YOS noscsi

[jot-87]

No, noscsi doesn't seem to help... I don't seem to be able to register to the Yoper forums to ask for help... This is all the lines I see on the screen. I can't make much out of it, maybe someone else can... Maybe this should go in a new thread?

Freeing unused kernel memory: 284k freed
Using try_mount
Checking /dev/hdc ... ide-cd: cmd 0x28 timed out
hdc: DMA interrupt recovery
hdc: lost interrupt
hdc: status error: status=0x58 { DriveReady SeekComplete DaraRequest }
hdc: status error: error=0x00
hdc: drive not ready for command
ide-cd: cmd 0x28 timed out
hdc: DMA interrupt recovery
hdc: lost interrupt
hdc: status timeout: status=0xd0 { Busy }
hdc: status timeout: error=0x04Aborted Command
hdc: DMA disabled
hdc: drive not ready for command
hdc: ATAPI reset complete
Unable to identify CD-ROM format.
no media
Checking /dev/scd0 ... no media
Checking /dev/scd1 ... no media
Checking /dev/scd2 ... no media
Checking /dev/scd3 ... no media
No YOS boot CD found!!!
Kernel panic: Attempt to kill init!

Maybe I'll install Mandrake just to avoid all the manual configuration and all the time that will take... just to make things simple.

[o0zi]

I'd suggest Damn Small Linux or Feather Linux (see my sig), both work like a charm on older systems and are Debian-based.

[jot-87]

Thanks for the tip! Right now I'm trying Vector linux (in the middle of the installation now). If it doesn't work out I'll try Feather Linux. Had forgotten about that, tried to install it on my USB memory but I couldn't install syslinux because I use "FAT" and not "FAT32" (and I can't change because it's also a MP3 player...).

P.S. Mandrake 9.1 did NOT work out well... I installed it in desperation, but it did not have the right packages... Not surprising, since it's not meant for "lite" installationsD.S

[jot-87]

Vector Linux works fine, it detected all my hardware correctly and has both fluxbox, XFce and IceWM to chose from. The only think that hasn\t worked is installing the swedish keyboad layout. I\m using the US key layout now, so I get a few funny symbols and letters here and there... Hope to fix it soon. Thanks for all the suggestions, but slach and gentoo will have to wait a little longer still... >(

(that was supposed to be a smile... this US key layout is really annoying...)

[nugget15]

I like DSL better than Feather Linux. www.damnsmalllinux.com or org I dont remember right off hand

[jot-87]

Vector Linux will stay on the laptop, I think I'll use DSL for my USB... but I'm not sure... Maybe I'll just try them both.

[seldomseen]

Similar situation -- I have an old Gateway Astro with 64M RAM, a 4G hard drive, and about (I think) 399 mHz. I keep it so my wife can learn on it. On this Gateway, Winders 98SE sputters and gasps like an old Rambler with asthma. DamnSmall Linux runs like blue blazes on this ol' Gateway, and it was a breeze to install in a dual-boot.
Helps that DSL uses Fluxbox; which can probably run on an abacus.

[jot-87]

great :) I'm planning on burning a DSL CD to use in school, if I like it I'll install it on the laptop.