• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Linux for system with only 24MB of ram?

M

mplutodh1

Senior member
I have a Dell Latitude LM Laptop with Intel Pentium Processor and only 24MB of ram.

Does anyone know of the most recent version of either Suse, Mandrake or any other easy to use distro for this system? Free is best seeing as I am hoping to just get it up and running, the hope is to get the Dlink DWL650 PCMCIA wireless card in it to work also, Win 98 doesn't want to allow it to get on the internet, although it recognizes the network.

The hope is to put Linux on it to use it as a web browser/AOL messenger machine.
 
Check out:

VEctorLinux or DSLinux

They both work very well on slower system.

You should really try to get at least a litt more RAM.
 
Debian.

You could make just about any one of them work on it, but with 24M of memory it's not going to be too fun.
 
yeah i know 24mb isnt gonna be fun, its a system i have sittin around from YEARS ago, my mom wants to get online to talk to my little bro at college over AIM and i figured if I could get it up and running itd be perfect. I will look into debian
 
Most distros graphical installers require 32megs or even 64megs just to install. To run the actual distro itself requires less memory in most cases... Which is probably partially why Debian doesn't do graphical installers.

Pleasent experiances with X are just out. Nope no X windows there. If you want to get creative you can try tinyx or maybe even qtoupia, which is what you use on embedded platforms and pocket-pc type things. Not sure how all that stuff works.

However it would still make a great Linux computer if you like to operate on the command line, which I understand if most people don't find that the most exciting prospect imaginable. Still though, you can get graphical browsers and such that run directly from the console on framebuffers so you can aviod the overhead of X windows. Some versions of the links browsers work well that way. Also some media players can play videos and such directly into the framebuffer or VGA graphic libraries, which don't require X.

Screen is a multiplexer for the command line so that you can have hundreds of consoles open, you can split the screen and divide it into quarters and have all that just work on the command line. How pleasent that is will depend on the support of your video card for doing high resolution text fonts.

Hey, and you know that using IRC chat from a command line is very 1337 anyways. 😉

Otherwise their is always Win95. (bleh)
 
eh maybe I won't mess with the linux idea then, just thought it may be easier to get the darn wireless card to work then it is with 98. Win 98 is on there now but the wireless card will connect, although not obtain an IP from the router so I can't get online at all or for that matter really fully connect to the network.
 
If you can get some older distro, it should work fine.
However the wireless card is unlikely to work, at least without some effort on your part.
 
However the wireless card is unlikely to work, at least without some effort on your part.
Click to expand...

That's not true unless it's a G card, a lot of B cards are supported by the orinoco drivers and work out of the box.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
However the wireless card is unlikely to work, at least without some effort on your part.
Click to expand...

That's not true unless it's a G card, a lot of B cards are supported by the orinoco drivers and work out of the box.
Click to expand...

I meant with an older distro, say some old 2.2 based one.
 
But there's no reason to use an older distro, all you have to do is not use Gnome or KDE. Instalilng ubuntu or Debian would even be simple since they still use ncurses installers.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
But there's no reason to use an older distro, all you have to do is not use Gnome or KDE. Instalilng ubuntu or Debian would even be simple since they still use ncurses installers.
Click to expand...

Not that I've tried, but I imagine XFree or X.org will still use up a relatively large chunk of RAM if you're using a somewhat new version. ?
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
Probably, but you would have to go back really far to find a version of X that wouldn't.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I was thinking along the lines of RedHat 5 or 6, or some similar distro from that period.
Not exactly the greatest, but better than Win9x anyway 🙂
 
Slackware, no question about it, default install and chmod rc.d and then enable everything that you ABSOLUTELY need by hand.

Minimal install, get whatever you KNOW you will use by using Slackpkg.

 
But then you have to deal with Slackware, Debian gets you the exact same thing without the fact that it's Slackware.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
But then you have to deal with Slackware, Debian gets you the exact same thing without the fact that it's Slackware.
Click to expand...

Nope, Slackware is about stability and simplicity, sure, you COULD get Debian to be like Slackware, but what would be the point of that?

For those of you who wonder why we argue over this, it is a classic, Debian or Slackware, the Deb freaks and the Slackheads have battled it out for a long time.

Nothingman is knowledgable, i will not deny that.

I will sill prefer Slackware though, simplicity and stability.
 
Originally posted by: Nothinman
But then you have to deal with Slackware, Debian gets you the exact same thing without the fact that it's Slackware.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with slackware?
 
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: Nothinman
But then you have to deal with Slackware, Debian gets you the exact same thing without the fact that it's Slackware.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with slackware?
Click to expand...

No apt, and BSD init 😉
 
Originally posted by: Sunner
Originally posted by: n0cmonkey
Originally posted by: Nothinman
But then you have to deal with Slackware, Debian gets you the exact same thing without the fact that it's Slackware.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what's wrong with slackware?
Click to expand...

No apt, and BSD init 😉
Click to expand...

slapt-get and swaret seem to be apt-like systems.
 
for me, links and mplayer work fine from a console running framebuffer, but it's not a nice computer experience for most people. (drag mentioned that you can run these without X, and i thought i'd chime in on that)
 
Ive used Damn Small Linux on old equipment and I am really pleased how well it runs, It will supposedly even run x on a 486dx/w 16 megs. It runs exelent on my p1 233 and 266 mmx laptops. Comparable to xp on my 1200 mhz box.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top