How would Debian run on a 500MHz/128mb RAM computer

[jimmyl930]

I'm planning on installing Debian 3.0r1 on a 500MHz/128mb RAM computer. How well would it run?

Thanks.

 

[igiveup]

Depends on what you load it up with. I am running Linux on a spare computer I have (without X, Gnome or KDE) but with Samba, and it only uses 50MB of ram. That text mode sure is snappy . Seriously though, more ram is always better, but as long as you don't load it up with a ton of daemons you should be ok.

 

[Nothinman]

More memory would be all I'd worry about, although Mozilla won't be snappy with only a 500Mhz CPU.

 

[jimmyl930]

What GUI would you recommend?

Thanks.

 

[Nothinman]

I use WindowMaker.

 

[zantac]

I use fluxbox on all my slow boxes. Course I use it on my main rig as well.

 

[Abzstrak]

fluxbox or waimea... considering spending $20-$25 to get more RAM, it'll make any OS run alot better

 

[Flatline]

blackbox, xfce, icewm, or enlightenment would all run just fine on that box; KDE and Gnome would be a bit sluggish but shouldn't be too bad (except for Mozilla and OpenOffice, which open slowly on any box)

 

[drag]

It'll run fine. That is plenty to run linux.

Of course more is better. A faster computer and it will run faster, etc... and linux responds very well to excess amounts ram.

It'll be comparable with running w2k on that as far as speed, but will be rock-solid stability wise.

Alsolute minimum that I'd personally run a gui would be on a pentium 200 or so, especially mmx model with 32-64 megs of RAM. Absolute minimum for a non-gui based Linux install woud be a 486 with 32 megs of Ram.. Anything under 16 megs gets uncomfortable very quickly and many modern installers used by redhat or suse won't work with less then 64 (or was it 32?) megs. I've run older version of GNOME on a 486, and that's not fun at all.