Arch Linux

Razien

Member

Registered: 2008-05-15

Posts: 34

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

ARGH!

Deli won't work =\
I'm not an expert in configuring stuff, but Deli don't wanna work on the first PC I tried x.x
I only hope I can install on another PC, or else I would have wasted a good CD, and I only have 3 o.o

Gonna try with Kurumin, see if it works.

Husio

Member

From: Europe

Registered: 2005-12-04

Posts: 359

Website

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

did you try 0.7?

Razien

Member

Registered: 2008-05-15

Posts: 34

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

0.7?

I download the newest one, 0.8
Didnt saw any old version for download

abhidg

Member

From: City of Kol

Registered: 2006-07-01

Posts: 184

Website

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

Give debian a try too... If you like KDE, download the kde-cd flavour. You
can also download the very small netinst image and install a minimal setup
after which you can download the packages you want (like in Arch).

rocktorrentz

Member

From: Southampton, England

Registered: 2007-08-05

Posts: 141

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

I thoroughly doubt that KDE is going to run in 64Mb of ram.

Berticus

Member

Registered: 2008-06-11

Posts: 731

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

I have two relatively old PC's at home.

On one machine:
cat /proc/meminfo showed I had 502.19 MB or RAM, cat /proc/cpuinfo showed I had a Pentium 4 2.000 GHz.  Currently I have Zenwalk on this machine, and all works fine.  Combined with a nVidia GeForce2 MX/MX 400 vga allows me to use compiz.  In fact, I have a little bet going that, even with this old system, I can still do more than what Vista can (requirements are compiz with atlantis plugin, hd movie, and a vm working at the same time).

I haven't checked out the specs on an older machine, but I know it sports a Pentium II that's less than 300 MHz.  I wanted to turn it into a DVD player using Geexbox, but the PC was too old even for that, which requires a Pentium 2 300 MHz for a minimum requirement.  My guess is it's got 64 MB of RAM, Matrox vga card and a Sonic sound card.

Unfortunately for the OP, Zenwalk can't be used on that PC either since the minimum hardware requirements states that it needs a Pentium III class processor, 125 MB of RAM and 2 GB of hdd.

You could try Gentoo Linux, but I'm migrating from them because they're deviating quite a bit from their mission.  I got a lot of broken packages on the last update.  A look at Distro Watch shows you can also use LinuxConsole, MEPIS Linux or TinyMe

Zepp

Member

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-25

Posts: 334

Website

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

Arch works only on i686 hardware, Pentium MMX is simply too old. Debian or any distro compiled for i586 or older will work.

Debian is compiled for i386.

I have two relatively old PC's at home.

You could try Gentoo Linux, but I'm migrating from them because they're deviating quite a bit from their mission.  I got a lot of broken packages on the last update.  A look at Distro Watch shows you can also use LinuxConsole, MEPIS Linux or TinyMe

Gentoo would be insanity on those machines. Even if they were all part of a distcc cluster it would still be terribly slow. Not to mention that portage requires quite a bit of disk space and I don't imagine the hard drives are very large. I am actually a gentoo user so I would love to recommend it, but it is a terrible choice for this makeup of machines.

I'd go with debian personally. Good package management and it should run on all the machines. I suggest use a very lightweight graphical environment try xfce or maybe even openbox/fluxbox/fvwm something to that effect.

Last edited by Zepp (2008-06-11 15:57:28)

11010010110

Member

Registered: 2008-01-14

Posts: 284

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

Gentoo is not that bad. I used gentoo on such a box (with 128 ram and not 64)

Use a second hard drive for portage (mount it as /usr/portage) and remove it when youre done

For gentoo without portage 4 G and possibly 2 G is enough. I used it with KDE and few hundred MB home partition on a 4.3 G drive

Use gentoo 2005.1 - its old but it was excellent. It has a precompiled stuff cd which you can use. This cd contains all the stuff you may need so you will have a full working box that 'froze in time' in 2005

Kernels compile from scratch in 1 night or so

Zer0

Member

From: Windsor, ON, Canada

Registered: 2006-08-25

Posts: 298

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

I think you could give Puppy Linux a try, it should run on those ol' MMX machines.

Puppy's Min Requirments

Zepp

Member

From: Ontario, Canada

Registered: 2006-03-25

Posts: 334

Website

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

I think you could give Puppy Linux a try, it should run on those ol' MMX machines.

Puppy's Min Requirments

Ah forgot about puppylinux, ya it and dsl probably would be ok choices from what I have read.

underpenguin

Member

Registered: 2007-02-01

Posts: 116

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

Posting now from my old P2 laptop, using delilinux .72. I managed to install their version of pacman (2.9 ). They have a limited package selection, but if you don't mind compiling, I would definitely give it a shot, definitely more responsive than puppy and debian when I tried them.

Razien

Member

Registered: 2008-05-15

Posts: 34

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

Bahh

Deli doesn't work for me.
The xorg setup doesn't work....

I tried arch on the celeron 600MHz, but the HD must be bad, cause the boot takes forever just to say that it needs to reboot. So, it doesn't work as well...

My my, forget it, they are going with windows, I'm gonna have trouble finding drivers, but at least it should work.
And 95 works with that one with 16mb bleh

multios

Member

Registered: 2006-05-29

Posts: 35

Re: Is arch suitable for old computers?

Please give TinyMe a try:
http://tinyme.mypclinuxos.com/wiki/doku.php

Or as suggested, try Slackware