Arch Linux

aliencult

Member

Registered: 2009-12-06

Posts: 2

Some help please...Need to install 40 light DE on old CPU's

Hi there!!

I'm looking the best possible install to provide a light Desktop Environment to deploy on 40 old CPU's (256MB RAM, AMD ATHLON XP 1200Mhz + and newer)

I need extensive audio card support and create a user session with Web-browser (Iceweasel) + email client (icedove) + ekiga / SIP Phone + OpenOffice 3 + Samba client + calculator + and if possible install a windows like theme, to improve the users experience, since their never used linux before.

I will appreciate any help to accomplish this using archlinux.

Thanks.

| AlienCult |

wuischke

Member

From: Suisse Romande

Registered: 2007-01-06

Posts: 630

Re: Some help please...Need to install 40 light DE on old CPU's

Hi aliencult,

you might have a look at icewm (wiki page with some hints) or lxde (wiki). Both should offer a good user experience and are very light weight.

For samba configuration, you'll also find help in the wiki. All other software you mention can be installed with the package manager pacman.

Hardware compatibility, i.e. sound, should be more or less the same on all modern Linux systems as drivers are provided with the Linux kernel.

Should you be new to archlinux in general, have a look at the Beginner's Guide to get a good introduction.

To actually install everything, it should be sufficient to install it on one machine and clone the partition for use with the other 39 computers. You can boot archlinux with the fallback option and it will work even after hardware changes. Afterwards it's just the matter of rebuilding the ramdisk (easiest done be reinstalling the kernel with "pacman -S kernel26") and your newly copied installation is as optimized as a fresh install.

aliencult

Member

Registered: 2009-12-06

Posts: 2

Re: Some help please...Need to install 40 light DE on old CPU's

wuischke,

wonderful, thank you.

I will take a look at those "Desktop Environments".
Very interesting the cloning tips...I've never done before because I was not sure if this will work on different hardware.

Thanks!

yupal

Member

From: Tulcea, Romania

Registered: 2009-12-06

Posts: 4

Re: Some help please...Need to install 40 light DE on old CPU's

Xfce is also a fast and nice DE