Linux Format forums

RE: Which distro for ancient laptop?

alloydog — Thu May 12, 2005 2:41 pm

Author: alloydog

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 2:41 pm

Vector Linux 4.3 - though you will be at the reccommended RAM limit 64MB. You try an earlier version. I found 3.2 was pretty good.

RE: Which distro for ancient laptop?

Birdman — Thu May 12, 2005 1:14 pm

Author: Birdman

Posted: Thu May 12, 2005 1:14 pm

I have installed Slackware on a similar spec Dell laptop. I am mindful of the newbie status and you may need to cut back on a few packages. It runs very nicely using the xfce4 wm.

RE: Which distro for ancient laptop?

fingers99 — Tue May 10, 2005 9:23 pm

Author: fingers99

Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 9:23 pm

It's got to be Debian or Slack. You might try a HD install of DSL though.

Create lots of swap!

RE: Which distro for ancient laptop?

towy71 — Tue May 10, 2005 4:39 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 4:39 pm

Hey back on my main machine and it is very nice but I wanted to try the ancient laptop but have been putting it off, so thanks catnamedog

So Debian it is Oh and a lite wm

Dick

RE: Which distro for ancient laptop?

towy71 — Tue May 10, 2005 4:35 pm

Author: towy71

Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 4:35 pm

I am replying to this post from a Celeron laptop with 64 Mb ram and struggling to run knoppix livecd and Icewm.
I know I am making it work hard but it will install on the 4 Gb hdd

so try knoppix or one of the variations

HTH
Dick

RE: Which distro for ancient laptop?

zarathustra — Tue May 10, 2005 3:12 pm

Author: zarathustra

Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 3:12 pm

I would suggest an earlier version of SuSE *pre novell* perhaps 7.2 as that from memory can handle such a laptop and has or at least can have a small footprint.

You might also look at Red Hat 7.1 as again it has a small footprint and it is also nippy I had it running at one time as a print server on an old laptop, a server *very slim install* and of course as a desktop.

Whatever you decide it really is versions from this kinda period you should be looking at.

Takre care

Which distro for ancient laptop?

catnamedog — Tue May 10, 2005 2:49 pm

Author: catnamedog

Posted: Tue May 10, 2005 2:49 pm

Hi all
Sorry if this should go in the mobile forum.
I've got an old Tosh Sattellite 4030CDS laptop with a celeron processor, 4gb hdd, and 64mb (yes!) of ram. Its got a CD reader and floppy disk as well.
I got a copy of PCLinuxOS from the web, and a copy of Mandriva on LXF June.
Sadly, neither of them are small enough, and install fails due to lack of memory.
Is there a small (DSL?) distro which is plug-and-play? I am an ignoramus newbie, so I dont have the expertise to chop bits out of standard distros to make it fit.
My ultimate project is to create a Carputer - touch screen, all the bits.
Thanks in advance.