What is a good distro for my laptop?

theawddone

Member
Sep 1, 2006
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I have been working on Fedora based computers at school for a few quarters and doing a decent amount of system (Unix) C programing (and taking an OS course next quarter), but I'd like to have a copy of Linux on one of my own computers. I currently have a desktop with WinXP that I don't really use all that much because I spend most of my time away from my house (either on campus or at my gf's house that is closer to campus), and also another newer laptop but it is borrowed from work so I cannot install a new operating system on it. So, I am left with using this cheapo laptop I had acquired freshman year to use for presentations and such, the specs are as follows:
Mobile AMD Semptrom Processor 3100+ 789Mhz
224 MB of RAM (DDR1)
ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M

It currently runs XP SP2 very slowly, but I only use it for plugging into my tv and playing downloaded tv/movies, so I will probably dual boot.

After seeing my friend using an eeePC with Xubuntu, I figured I would try that since the Ubuntu site recommends more RAM. However, I believe there is a problem with the video drivers so the liveCD installation did not work, after entering in the login name I'd like to create it just locks up at the desktop. So, I have downloaded an alternate installation CD.

I am also looking into Mint (have a torrent going for that right now) after reading a few articles about it and seeing others say that they like it. I could not find a recommending specs on their website, but I like that it has a lot of the features built-in initially.

I am definitely willing to try more than one distro, but would just like to get one to tinker around with for now over the break.

Thanks
 

dennilfloss

Past Lifer 1957-2014 In Memoriam
Oct 21, 1999
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dennilfloss.blogspot.com
Mint is heavy on the hardware requirements due to the eye candy. Beautiful distro though. Kiwi is also similar and looks gorgeous too but needs decent hardware.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=kiwi

I use TinyMe on a laptop with a celeron 600CPU and 256MB of memory. It's a modified PCLinuxOS version geared towards older hardware. Works very well and has access to the PCLinuxOS packages.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=tinyme

2008.0 weighs in at 200MB iso. 2008.1 is leaner at 150MB iso.

Screenshots from my laptop with 2008.0:

http://www.imagebam.com/image/cc3c8721307960
http://img149.imageshack.us/my...e=tinymedesktopaq9.jpg

You could also check Slax. It worked pretty well on the same laptop and is based on Slackware.

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=slax
 

thedarkwolf

Diamond Member
Oct 13, 1999
9,000
109
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Yeah I'd give tinyme a try. Its small but still looks pretty nice and is fairly easy to use. I set it up it up on an old 1ghz 256meg desktop just to play with it and it runs great on it.

I've ran Xubuntu on my old laptop and I really like it but I do have 1gig of ram in it. Not sure how great it would be on just 256megs.
 

theawddone

Member
Sep 1, 2006
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Thanks for the replies! I finally got xubuntu to install via the alternate install disk, and it is now booting up (very very slowly). So, if it continues to be this slow I may try TinyMe, would it be best just to reformat my drive (what kind of file system should i use btw...?) and then install on that?
 
Dec 10, 2005
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Originally posted by: theawddone
Thanks for the replies! I finally got xubuntu to install via the alternate install disk, and it is now booting up (very very slowly). So, if it continues to be this slow I may try TinyMe, would it be best just to reformat my drive (what kind of file system should i use btw...?) and then install on that?

I use Ubuntu and have my drive formated in Ext3 for both my / and /home partitions.
 

hunter761

Senior member
Jan 20, 2006
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It's tough to go wrong with a PCLinuxOS based distro. They claim that they are the distro hopper-stopper. That was true in my case. I now use it or variations of it on all of my computers.

When I have an older unit with a smallish amount of RAM, I use TinyMe/MiniMe, or PCFluxBoxOS. All three are lighter versions of PCLinuxOS.

Also, you'll want to use Ext2 as your file system on older machines, and Ext3 for non old machines. Ext2 uses less resources, leaving more for you. Ext3 has a built in error checking feature, that isn't necessary.

EXPERIMENT. There are hundreds of different free Linux versions that you can try out. Download, Burn, Try, Rinse, Repeat. Have Fun! This is one of the MAJOR attractions of Linux that Windows just can't compete with. Many of the distros come in live versions so that you can try them without altering anything on your hard drive.

Let us know how it's going.

H

 

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
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Originally posted by: theawddone
Thanks for the replies! I finally got xubuntu to install via the alternate install disk, and it is now booting up (very very slowly). So, if it continues to be this slow I may try TinyMe, would it be best just to reformat my drive (what kind of file system should i use btw...?) and then install on that?

TinyMe gave me a real hard time with dual-booting, so I think I would try it on its own disk.