Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

m123 · 2006-07-20 15:42:38

I've been given a pentium 200 Mhz 64 Mb RAM I can't install Arch on it (I know, there has been attempts to make a i586 repo, but this is quite old).

What would the forum users advise me to install on this PC ?

Ideally, I would like to be able to run a web browser and play CDs.

Thanks in advance !

dtw · 2006-07-20 15:49:20

Vector Linux! It rocks!

djpharoah · 2006-07-20 16:08:20

If your up to it - LFS

Kermit · 2006-07-20 16:30:10

Slackware will be good.

Kermit.

dtw · 2006-07-20 17:52:15

djpharoah wrote:

If your up to it - LFS

What's being up to it got to do with anything? I'm up to it but I wouldn't install LFS on any desktop machine! I might do on a nice simple server but not on anything that required X. Exactly how long would it take to compile X on a 200Mhz proc?

Titus · 2006-07-20 18:00:38

do you want to try Damn Small Linux, it is smallets and the fastest

tomfitzyuk · 2006-07-20 18:55:15

dtw wrote:

djpharoah wrote:
If your up to it - LFS
What's being up to it got to do with anything? I'm up to it but I wouldn't install LFS on any desktop machine! I might do on a nice simple server but not on anything that required X. Exactly how long would it take to compile X on a 200Mhz proc?

Because if he wasn't up to it, he wouldn't be able to install it

Anyway, I recommend Slackware for older computers though like djpharoah, if you think you could install LFS, I recommend that.

kth5 · 2006-07-20 19:47:37

i'd say you go with debian. it's probably the most up to date distro for <i686 that has more or less decent package management.

if you look for more up to date arch packages for i586 you may find this interesting:

ftp://ftp.archlinuxppc.org/current/os/i586
ftp://ftp.archlinuxppc.org/extra/os/i586

i'll grant access to the repo if anyone want's to pick up development where i left it off at.

djpharoah · 2006-07-20 19:58:04

dtw wrote:

djpharoah wrote:
If your up to it - LFS
What's being up to it got to do with anything? I'm up to it but I wouldn't install LFS on any desktop machine! I might do on a nice simple server but not on anything that required X. Exactly how long would it take to compile X on a 200Mhz proc?

Exactly - I thought this pc would just be a CLI machine seeing as its not pushing much "weight" and thats why I recommended LFS

m123 · 2006-07-20 20:35:23

Thanks to all.

So, Vector Linux, Slackware, DSL and Debian are the candidates. I have some experience with Debian so I'll start with it, at least to see if all works.

I generally use Kde and am pretty sure it will not be able to run on this PC. Is there a preference for a lighter DE or WM: xfce, enlightment, fluxbox, ...

And a "light" web browser?

Ah, I forgot... I don't think I am "up to LFS". Not now.

dtw · 2006-07-20 21:13:29

*box over XFCE or E17 I think - XFCE starts slow on my GFs 650Mhz!

kth5 · 2006-07-20 21:46:53

dtw wrote:

*box over XFCE or E17 I think - XFCE starts slow on my GFs 650Mhz!

probably the gtk2 usage in xfce that slows it down so much. nevertheless, you won't get around using gtk2 completely either and startup time is a minor issue in my opinion. it already loaded the lib when it is booted and that may well speed up starting other apps such as firefox or whetever you need on a non-integrated desktop. so xfce might after all be a decent choice.

rosh · 2006-07-20 22:23:56

I have been using epiphany recently, and have enjoyed it. It uses the same rendering engine firefox does, so pages render nicely and all that. Yet, it is still light. However, it does depend on gnome. But, that won't stop you from using a fast and light window manager and then just running epiphany from there, right?

kth5 · 2006-07-20 22:35:54

rosh wrote:

I have been using epiphany recently, and have enjoyed it. It uses the same rendering engine firefox does, so pages render nicely and all that. Yet, it is still light. However, it does depend on gnome. But, that won't stop you from using a fast and light window manager and then just running epiphany from there, right?

doesn't make much sense to use an application that is integrated into gnome if you don't use its desktop. pretty much like with konqueror and kde. if you don't use kde it's slow as hell cos it needs to instanciate all the kde stuff it depends on which would normally be shared among simultaneously running kde apps. this usually is what people forget when they say "lightweight desktop environment". dcop and orbit2 are there for a reason.

dtw · 2006-07-20 23:03:06

you won't get around using gtk2 completely either

I use QT and Opera on the AEGIS live-cd...though it does run XFCE too I take your point though

user · 2006-07-21 00:57:14

Michel F wrote:

And a "light" web browser?

elinks or dillo
http://elinks.or.cz/
http://www.dillo.org/

PS: i would recommend this for old computer
http://www.delilinux.de/

m123 · 2006-07-21 17:58:24

Again, thanks to all. Your comments and suggestions are very halpful and appeciated.

Now the reality is that my old PC has a very poor video card (VGA with 256 colors).

I was unable to launch X on debian (testing - X 11R7.1). Something like Fatal Error 104 and Channel 11. I found nothing on the web to help me, the "channel 11" error is apparently caused by a myriad of things ranging from memory failure to lots of things).

DSL did boot both live and on hard disk, but the rendering was ugly and I was unable to launch the dillo web browser.

So for now, I will keep it this PC with debian in text mode and practice my command line skills.

inf · 2006-07-21 20:51:33

Zenwalk could be a good choice

www.zenwalk.org

Ryujin · 2006-07-21 22:20:51

Zenwalk would be a good option, I put debian on everything thats too old for Arch, but a newer distro Rubix would be a good idea, it is based on slackware but uses pacman

m123 · 2006-07-23 04:22:48

A quick update, for thos who are interested in antiquities:

I borrowed a nice video card (thanks Jean) and:
- DSL boots fine and looks fine. Dillo is much faster than firefox, but try this website with dillo and you won't recognize it... Anyway, DSL has the advantage of booting from a live CD and again is very fast.

- Debian is debian. It boots well and with it I tested xfce4+firefox and kde+konqueror. To my surprise kde worked and I did not see a huge difference timewise (boot time + browser launch time). But this remains slow compared to DSL.

ScriptDevil · 2006-07-23 05:30:44

i would suggest u to go in for netbsd

test1000 · 2006-07-24 00:55:25

frugalware and puppylinux should also be mentioned :-)

Cotton · 2006-09-25 10:21:28

Ryujin wrote:

Zenwalk would be a good option, I put debian on everything thats too old for Arch, but a newer distro Rubix would be a good idea, it is based on slackware but uses pacman

Rubix is no longer active: http://www.rubixlinux.org/

Ryujin · 2006-09-26 03:40:55

I just found that out about rubix, it made me sad, I think it had some promise

PingFloyd · 2006-09-26 06:47:08

Every distro has it's pros and cons, but in the big picture, it doesn't really matter that much which one you choose (in most cases that is. There is some exception like in the case of Arch, it's more geared toward i-686 and higher). One way or another you're building a system with GNU/Linux that can ultimately be molded to just how you want things.

You probably want to hear opinion though is the reason you made this thread.

If it were me, I would put Debian stable on that system. What I like about Debian is that it's very broad in scope and tries to take an approach to make maintaining a system manageable. It's startup process and configurations tend to be a bit convoluted and abstracted, but that's what is necessary to make a system where it can be flexible about whatever higher end tools can be used to manage things. You can still of course get down into the guts of everything and manipulate the system from there, it's just that Debian's approach is to try to make it so that a system requires as little of micro management as possible. This can create some delimmas if you get too carried away and try to stray from Debian's framework. The key is really understanding the thinking behind Debian before you go mucking too much with the guts of the system (however, maybe not, depending on what type of person you are. If you're the hacker type, then you see breaking things and figuring out the fix them as being a part of the learning process and fun). There actually is some wisdom behind their reasoning behind things. It took me awhile over time to understand some of it, but once I started making sense out of "why they do things a certain way", I came to think that it's a pretty good way to do things since it makes it easier to keep track of.

If you were to install Debian, your best bet is just install base and then build up with the packages you need with apt-get and aptitude. If you choose their install templates, they may be build up a system that requires more performance than what you system can muster. For instance, since you're running with only 64MB DRAM, I wouldn't recommend running gnome or KDE. DEs tend to be pretty demanding. XFCE is often thought of a little less demanding for being a DE, but I think it has tended to become pretty heavy over time also.

If you just want to do everything from the console then your system will be plenty fast, but if you want some sort of GUI then you'll probably want to run with some WM.

Now you may want to try gnome or KDE regardless of what I told you. I find it bit sluggish on my system which is a little higher spec than yours, but what the hey, it's very easier to install and remove stuff with Debian thanks to it's top-notch packaging system. So why not experiment.

Then after you run with Debian for awhile, you might want to check out other distros if you they interest you as well. The good thing about Debian is that it's good in that it's very trivial to tweak around with the system and add and remove packages. It's high-level approach to system management makes it so that you can spend as little or as much time on fine tuning things which allows you to expirement alot.

Anyway, that's all just my opinion. Every Linux users has their own different experiences and opinions when it comes Linux. Regardless of whatever you decide to do, you're off on the right foot by going with Linux. Actually, I think a person is off on the right foot just by going with some unix variant in general. Doesn't necessarily have to be Linux. The main thing is don't be afraid to experiment. That really the only way, on so many levels when it comes to *nix in general, to ultimately have the answers that you seek. Just be sure to backup anything that's important or irreplaceable along the way and always have a contingency plan (i.e. be paranoid and pesimistic and prepare for the absolute worst scenario that could happen even though it is highly unlikely to. It's always better to be over-prepared and never need to resort a contingency plan than to end up in a pickle.). And pretty much everything I've said is debateable. What I just typed some Linux may identify with, while other have a totally different take on all of that. So it really comes down to who you ask. Different Linux users will have different experiences which shape their opinions of things differently. That's why I say the bottomline is probably to just get in there and start hacking around with Linux with whatever distro. Over time you'll probably come to have your own feelings as to what is the best way to go with different situations and scenarios.

So get to installing

Arch Linux

#1 2006-07-20 15:42:38

Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#2 2006-07-20 15:49:20

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#3 2006-07-20 16:08:20

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#4 2006-07-20 16:30:10

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#5 2006-07-20 17:52:15

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#6 2006-07-20 18:00:38

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#7 2006-07-20 18:55:15

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#8 2006-07-20 19:47:37

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#9 2006-07-20 19:58:04

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#10 2006-07-20 20:35:23

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#11 2006-07-20 21:13:29

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#12 2006-07-20 21:46:53

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#13 2006-07-20 22:23:56

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#14 2006-07-20 22:35:54

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#15 2006-07-20 23:03:06

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#16 2006-07-21 00:57:14

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#17 2006-07-21 17:58:24

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#18 2006-07-21 20:51:33

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#19 2006-07-21 22:20:51

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#20 2006-07-23 04:22:48

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#21 2006-07-23 05:30:44

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#22 2006-07-24 00:55:25

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#23 2006-09-25 10:21:28

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#24 2006-09-26 03:40:55

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

#25 2006-09-26 06:47:08

Re: Which distro would be best for an old pentium based PC ?

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