A better distro for laptop with only 128MB RAM

[Nothinman]

I've never had any problems with nv before, but I've only ever used it long enough to get the nvidia driver installed.

Now that I think about it /var/log/Xorg.log should tell you what driver it's using.

 

[Brazen]

ah well. It's working fine now with the binary driver.

 

[JohnOfSheffield]

I'd go with Slack or Arch and install whatever you like ontop of the basic.

Gentoo is a horrible idea though, you'd have to compile every update, that would bring that machine to it's knees.

If i were you, i'd probably go with Arch unless you need special software, there are no repos like the Debian repos, if it exists you'll find it there.

 

[GundamSonicZeroX]

I suggest Puppy Linux.

http://www.puppylinux.org/

 

[Net]

i use to run slackware on my
P54C 90MHz @ 120.277MHz, 60MHz bus and a 1.2GB hard drive

wish i still had that system. it was fun to mess around with.

and i ran slackware on my AMD k6-2 550mhz

 

[timzak]

Have you tried Puppy 4.0? It runs from RAM and feels super fast on my P3 650 laptop. All codecs are installed out of the box, so no configuration needed. It's not very user-friendly compared to Debian/Ubuntu (in terms of tweaking the desktop, adding apps, etc), but considering your low memory, it may be the best bang for the buck you can get. The great part is you can run it from a CD, save your configuration files on your hard drive, and keep your Debian install and play with both.

 

[Fox5]

I vote for Puppylinux. Pretty light weight and not terribly unuser friendly.

Even Xubuntu is too heavy to run in less than 256MB of ram. It's basically a stripped Ubuntu running a lighter GUI.

 

[Nothinman]

Even Xubuntu is too heavy to run in less than 256MB of ram. It's basically a stripped Ubuntu running a lighter GUI.

Both of which can be customized however you like. You can install Ubuntu and just use e16 or fluxbox if you like, the only difference is the set of default packages installed.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Even Xubuntu is too heavy to run in less than 256MB of ram. It's basically a stripped Ubuntu running a lighter GUI.

Both of which can be customized however you like. You can install Ubuntu and just use e16 or fluxbox if you like, the only difference is the set of default packages installed.

Well, Fluxbox isn't substantially lighter than XFCE, and really starts to cut out on functionality. In general, the packages the buntus use are too heavy to be a good fit for systems with less ram and you really should be looking for a dedicated light weight distro once you drop below 256MB.

 

[Nothinman]

Well, Fluxbox isn't substantially lighter than XFCE, and really starts to cut out on functionality. In general, the packages the buntus use are too heavy to be a good fit for systems with less ram and you really should be looking for a dedicated light weight distro once you drop below 256MB.

Fluxbox was just an example, if you want to use JWM you can install that instead.

 

[PrimoTurbo]

Arch linux with openbox, lxpanel (or something else minimal).

Don't use FF use a MUCH light browser, maybe Kazehakase?

Check this guys blog he has been able to make some very light systems. http://kmandla.wordpress.com

To be honest I think a light Windows2000 setup will run great under 128MB of RAM.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Give Vector Linux a try. We're installing it at work on old P2 laptops and its rather snappy. Can't recall how much ram they have but I would not imagine any more then 128m.

It even has a super mario game.

 

[degibson]

If you can live with a 2.4 kernel, slackware is a good option. I don't know if the most recent versions will run on 128 MB, but I know some older ones do. Otherwise, I like Puppy Linux, as others have suggested, and there's always Damn Small Linux.

 

[450]

Due to the low amount of RAM I almost think that a copy of Windows 2000 would be better since viewing a flash vid eats RAM.

I vote for Slackware or Vector Linux (based on Slack). Also consider getting more RAM. 256 or 512 should be an easy buy.

 

[BlueAcolyte]

Vector or Arch.