thelastknowngod Posted February 21, 2006 Report Share Posted February 21, 2006 hey everyone! this my first post wanted to say hey.i need some help on selecting the right linux distro for an old computer. im not sure of the specs off the top of my head. its my girlfriends old computer that she needs to be a little quicker cause she getting DSL (finally). i think it has something like 64mb (maybe even 32mb) of ram, 2 or 3gb hdd, cd-rom, usb1, i dont know the exact processor but i think its a pentium 1.... dont know.ive tried a few distros... suse, slax, fedora, red hat... i honestly never liked them cause something as simple as installing new software was difficult and i didnt feel like dealing with all the extra work. within the last month though ive installed ubuntu and im actually starting to use linux more than anything else. its mainly due to the apt-get command. so simple. anyway... id like a distro that uses the same package manager as ubuntu (i think its debian based but im not 100% sure). and obsiously... it cant be heavy.it needs a wifi card in it also. i cannot use pci or pcmcia or anything like that its an acer actual desktop computer. like this....it only has usb1.1 and a 10/100 port. usb would be ideal if i can do it. has to be wireless g, work with usb 1.1, work with linux, and be cheap.any help would be awesome. thanks guys. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
naraku9333 Posted February 21, 2006 Report Share Posted February 21, 2006 Although I hate to say it that system may run better with windows 95 or 98, 32Mb's of RAM is very low for running an X server (if it even can), even 64MB is low. But if you want to try (what can it hurt) I would try damn small or vector linux (I had vector run an x server on an old laptop with 32 megs and it was extremely slow). Quote Link to post Share on other sites
iccaros Posted February 21, 2006 Report Share Posted February 21, 2006 hey everyone! this my first post wanted to say hey.i need some help on selecting the right linux distro for an old computer. im not sure of the specs off the top of my head. its my girlfriends old computer that she needs to be a little quicker cause she getting DSL (finally). i think it has something like 64mb (maybe even 32mb) of ram, 2 or 3gb hdd, cd-rom, usb1, i dont know the exact processor but i think its a pentium 1.... dont know.ive tried a few distros... suse, slax, fedora, red hat... i honestly never liked them cause something as simple as installing new software was difficult and i didnt feel like dealing with all the extra work. within the last month though ive installed ubuntu and im actually starting to use linux more than anything else. its mainly due to the apt-get command. so simple. anyway... id like a distro that uses the same package manager as ubuntu (i think its debian based but im not 100% sure). and obsiously... it cant be heavy.it needs a wifi card in it also. i cannot use pci or pcmcia or anything like that its an acer actual desktop computer. like this....it only has usb1.1 and a 10/100 port. usb would be ideal if i can do it. has to be wireless g, work with usb 1.1, work with linux, and be cheap.any help would be awesome. thanks guys.hmm a few notes...all Linux distros have a package manager, Red hat uses APT or YUM , SUSE has YAST (think synaptic for yum)second, you will need an older distro with an updated kernel to get wifi support. try an older slackware or something. Puppy and DSL (damn small linux) should run, but installing new software is not what they are made to do, as they are live cd distros.. here is a write up about linux on old computer.. http://www.fraw.org.uk/pubs/ssp/ssp-01.htmlwhile there is a cool factor of getting that last bit of performance from an old system.. $300 is well spent on a newer machine.or just upgrade the ram to 128 meg.. and you should be good to go with any linux distrobution.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
thelastknowngod Posted February 21, 2006 Author Report Share Posted February 21, 2006 hey everyone! this my first post wanted to say hey.i need some help on selecting the right linux distro for an old computer. im not sure of the specs off the top of my head. its my girlfriends old computer that she needs to be a little quicker cause she getting DSL (finally). i think it has something like 64mb (maybe even 32mb) of ram, 2 or 3gb hdd, cd-rom, usb1, i dont know the exact processor but i think its a pentium 1.... dont know.ive tried a few distros... suse, slax, fedora, red hat... i honestly never liked them cause something as simple as installing new software was difficult and i didnt feel like dealing with all the extra work. within the last month though ive installed ubuntu and im actually starting to use linux more than anything else. its mainly due to the apt-get command. so simple. anyway... id like a distro that uses the same package manager as ubuntu (i think its debian based but im not 100% sure). and obsiously... it cant be heavy.it needs a wifi card in it also. i cannot use pci or pcmcia or anything like that its an acer actual desktop computer. like this....it only has usb1.1 and a 10/100 port. usb would be ideal if i can do it. has to be wireless g, work with usb 1.1, work with linux, and be cheap.any help would be awesome. thanks guys.hmm a few notes...all Linux distros have a package manager, Red hat uses APT or YUM , SUSE has YAST (think synaptic for yum)second, you will need an older distro with an updated kernel to get wifi support. try an older slackware or something. Puppy and DSL (damn small linux) should run, but installing new software is not what they are made to do, as they are live cd distros.. here is a write up about linux on old computer.. http://www.fraw.org.uk/pubs/ssp/ssp-01.htmlwhile there is a cool factor of getting that last bit of performance from an old system.. $300 is well spent on a newer machine.or just upgrade the ram to 128 meg.. and you should be good to go with any linux distrobution..1st... i know all distros have a package manager.2nd... dsl has in its main menu system an option "Install to Hard Disk." so installing software is possible. i want the simplicity of apt-get for installing new software. and dsl uses an up to date kernel and is still lightweight but i dont believe it has the apt-get function.3rd... i found out the specs on the computer. it is an AMD K6 with 64mb ram and a 10gb drive. not as bad as i thought... Quote Link to post Share on other sites
iccaros Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 hey everyone! this my first post wanted to say hey.i need some help on selecting the right linux distro for an old computer. im not sure of the specs off the top of my head. its my girlfriends old computer that she needs to be a little quicker cause she getting DSL (finally). i think it has something like 64mb (maybe even 32mb) of ram, 2 or 3gb hdd, cd-rom, usb1, i dont know the exact processor but i think its a pentium 1.... dont know.ive tried a few distros... suse, slax, fedora, red hat... i honestly never liked them cause something as simple as installing new software was difficult and i didnt feel like dealing with all the extra work. within the last month though ive installed ubuntu and im actually starting to use linux more than anything else. its mainly due to the apt-get command. so simple. anyway... id like a distro that uses the same package manager as ubuntu (i think its debian based but im not 100% sure). and obsiously... it cant be heavy.it needs a wifi card in it also. i cannot use pci or pcmcia or anything like that its an acer actual desktop computer. like this....it only has usb1.1 and a 10/100 port. usb would be ideal if i can do it. has to be wireless g, work with usb 1.1, work with linux, and be cheap.any help would be awesome. thanks guys.hmm a few notes...all Linux distros have a package manager, Red hat uses APT or YUM , SUSE has YAST (think synaptic for yum)second, you will need an older distro with an updated kernel to get wifi support. try an older slackware or something. Puppy and DSL (damn small linux) should run, but installing new software is not what they are made to do, as they are live cd distros.. here is a write up about linux on old computer.. http://www.fraw.org.uk/pubs/ssp/ssp-01.htmlwhile there is a cool factor of getting that last bit of performance from an old system.. $300 is well spent on a newer machine.or just upgrade the ram to 128 meg.. and you should be good to go with any linux distrobution..1st... i know all distros have a package manager.2nd... dsl has in its main menu system an option "Install to Hard Disk." so installing software is possible. i want the simplicity of apt-get for installing new software. and dsl uses an up to date kernel and is still lightweight but i dont believe it has the apt-get function.3rd... i found out the specs on the computer. it is an AMD K6 with 64mb ram and a 10gb drive. not as bad as i thought...http://www.mepis.org/ (apt)www.slax.org (no apt)www.iccaros-linux.org (has slapt)puppy and dsl can install to hd but are missing a lot of lib's to make it expandable easly Quote Link to post Share on other sites
hitest Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 hey everyone! this my first post wanted to say hey.i need some help on selecting the right linux distro for an old computer. im not sure of the specs off the top of my head. its my girlfriends old computer that she needs to be a little quicker cause she getting DSL (finally). i think it has something like 64mb (maybe even 32mb) of ram, 2 or 3gb hdd, cd-rom, usb1, i dont know the exact processor but i think its a pentium 1.... dont know.ive tried a few distros... suse, slax, fedora, red hat... i honestly never liked them cause something as simple as installing new software was difficult and i didnt feel like dealing with all the extra work. within the last month though ive installed ubuntu and im actually starting to use linux more than anything else. its mainly due to the apt-get command. so simple. anyway... id like a distro that uses the same package manager as ubuntu (i think its debian based but im not 100% sure). and obsiously... it cant be heavy.it needs a wifi card in it also. i cannot use pci or pcmcia or anything like that its an acer actual desktop computer. like this....it only has usb1.1 and a 10/100 port. usb would be ideal if i can do it. has to be wireless g, work with usb 1.1, work with linux, and be cheap.any help would be awesome. thanks guys.hmm a few notes...all Linux distros have a package manager, Red hat uses APT or YUM , SUSE has YAST (think synaptic for yum)second, you will need an older distro with an updated kernel to get wifi support. try an older slackware or something. Puppy and DSL (damn small linux) should run, but installing new software is not what they are made to do, as they are live cd distros.. here is a write up about linux on old computer.. http://www.fraw.org.uk/pubs/ssp/ssp-01.htmlwhile there is a cool factor of getting that last bit of performance from an old system.. $300 is well spent on a newer machine.or just upgrade the ram to 128 meg.. and you should be good to go with any linux distrobution..1st... i know all distros have a package manager.2nd... dsl has in its main menu system an option "Install to Hard Disk." so installing software is possible. i want the simplicity of apt-get for installing new software. and dsl uses an up to date kernel and is still lightweight but i dont believe it has the apt-get function.3rd... i found out the specs on the computer. it is an AMD K6 with 64mb ram and a 10gb drive. not as bad as i thought...Sorry, but, you're not going to get apt-get working very well if at all on that unit. Either ubuntu or debian will need more than 64 MB RAM to function, that is, they may function, but, they'll be so slow as to be all but unusable. I've put ubuntu on a Pll with 128 MB RAM and it was no fun at all, too slow.I agree with iccaros, I'd go with DSL or an older version of Slackware. Slackware will run x windows with 64 MB RAM. btw, iccaros is one of our resident gurus! He really knows Linux. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
shanenin Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 speaking of ram requirements. I am just amazed winodows 98 will run with just 16mbs. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
iccaros Posted February 22, 2006 Report Share Posted February 22, 2006 speaking of ram requirements. I am just amazed winodows 98 will run with just 16mbs.windows 98 will run (poorly) so will red hat 6.0 and 6.3. both will swap out alot.. the issue now is a lot of distrobutions have upgraded to match hardware, and give all the fetures it can.. if you build a system from the ground up (like gentoo, linux from scratch, slackware, bsd, netbsd, freebsd) you have a good working system.. evil wm takes 32k to run an simple windows manager.. I have gentoo runnning on my xbox (64 megs ram with 24 taken for video) and 733 mhz celaron.it can be done.. just needs to be built or use an older version like red hat 6.3.. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
rhema7 Posted March 2, 2006 Report Share Posted March 2, 2006 DSL (damn Small Linux) http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ my vote Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.