Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

truefire · 2009-04-13 21:30:15

Hi everyone,

I'm a veteran Ubuntu user since 6.06, thus, I know, and am not afraid of command line.

I have an old P3 Thinkpad that used to run Xubuntu, but it was still too slow with that, so I started looking for other distros that are speedier. I hear Arch is good in this area, so I'm willing to give it a go, even if I have to learn a bit.
I'm no gamer, and I know I'm not expecting too much from my trusty Thinkpad - just basic Web/graphic design and word processing.

Any tips, words from the wise, etc? I am especially interested in getting used to a new package manager (pacman?)

Thanks in advance,
Truefire

evilgold · 2009-04-13 22:23:39

I have arch on my toshiba protege. Its a PIII 1.3ghz with 512mb ram. The system came with ubuntu and it was much to slow for my tastes so i switched over to arch about a week after i got it.

Compared to ubuntu arch seems much faster on just about any systems, but i think its especially noticable on older ones.

truefire · 2009-04-13 23:32:26

Thanks looks like that's what I'll do, then.

LeoSolaris · 2009-04-14 04:20:18

Yes, even on a C2D laptop Arch is faster than Ubuntu.

Pacman is a lot like apt-get rather than aptitude. It's simplistic seeming exterior is a lie however... there are a lot of little things you can do with pacman that apt-get and aptitude can't do. Add to the powerful functionality of pacman the wrappers like yaourt to help with the AUR source/svn/git building and powerpill to make the downloads segmented so you can get a whole bunch of simultaneous chunks (faster to download a lot of little chunks rather than one large file) and you have a fast, minimal, and easy package manger.

P.S. The Gnome here even runs faster, but for a smaller system, I would look at one of the *boxes or something similar. Personally I like Openbox.

Inxsible · 2009-04-14 04:30:45

As an added confirmation, I am running arch on my 9 yr old Dell Latitude which has a P3 1.13GHz, 256 MB RAM, nvidia 32mb shared graphics card.

I currently run musca...and it is an amazing wm. Look into one of the tiling wms if you are into them. If not, *boxes are often a good and lightweight choice.

Last edited by Inxsible (2009-04-14 04:32:06)

adamlau · 2009-04-14 05:59:15

Running Arch + JWM on a PC w/ a PIII 800 GHz w/ 512 MB. Dropped it to a color depth of 16-bits for improved response, box runs surprisingly well. Versus apt, I prefer pacman.

andre.ramaciotti · 2009-04-14 13:11:24

I used to run Arch in a PIII with 700MHz and 320MB without problems.

whompus · 2009-04-14 19:37:15

Have Arch and kdemod4 on my Thinkpad T22, 900MHz 512mb ram. Used only as a backup now, even managed to run XP in a Vmware virtual machine although it did drag its heels a bit.

Arch Linux

#1 2009-04-13 21:30:15

Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#2 2009-04-13 22:23:39

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#3 2009-04-13 23:32:26

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#4 2009-04-14 04:20:18

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#5 2009-04-14 04:30:45

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#6 2009-04-14 05:59:15

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#7 2009-04-14 13:11:24

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

#8 2009-04-14 19:37:15

Re: Should I install Arch on my PIII Thinkpad?

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