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16Skittles · 2011-05-28 11:48:11

I recently had an old hard drive die. my computer teacher replaced it (Free!!), but I need to know what to use on it. I currently am running "D" Small Linux (am I allowed to say that? edit, no, I replaced with "D"), but am wondering if I should switch to an (old, its an 8 year old laptop) Ubuntu distro. Which should I choose? I could just stick with DSL, but I'm thinking about switching to Ubuntu to get some user-friendlyness and better looks. which should I choose? (my teacher and a guy from a computer store recommended not going past Ubuntu 8)

urhungry · 2011-05-28 11:58:17

DSL and Puppy will probably receive the best prefermance on that machine, but they are both fairly unconventional and irritating to use. If you run an old version of Ubuntu you will find that none of your software works, and it will still be pretty slow. You may want to try CrunchBang, CTKArch, ArchBang or MadBox, all of which use a nice light openbox desktop. The Fluxbox editions of Salix and Mint are also quite light. Try one of those.

16Skittles · 2011-05-28 12:07:22

how about LUbuntu? I heard that that's a lighter version of Ubuntu

urhungry · 2011-05-28 12:09:58

Lubuntu uses LXDE which is still a lot heavier then Openbox or Fluxbox. If you want Ubuntu's hardware support and package availability both MadBox and Linux Mint Fluxbox are Ubuntu based.

meew0 · 2011-05-28 12:10:36

Try Xubuntu. It's also a lightweight ubuntu and worked quite well on my 11 year old laptop (which I don't use anymore).

I don't know about Lubuntu... You could also try it out.

16Skittles · 2011-05-28 12:10:39

kk, looking into them.

urhungry · 2011-05-28 12:17:01

Xubuntu is actually heavier then Lubuntu.

16Skittles · 2011-05-29 10:28:25

bump, can I get the RAM usage of these?

meew0 · 2011-05-29 10:29:29

urhungry wrote:
Xubuntu is actually heavier then Lubuntu.

Like I said, I don't know about lubuntu.

And @16Skittles: just go to the download page of them and check the system requirements.

Last edited by meew0 (2011-05-29 10:32:03)

Harakou · 2011-05-29 12:31:29

Hm... what are your computer's specs? Performance really varies depending on the computer - Ubuntu is fine on my dual core 1.46GHz laptop but chugs along on my dad's Pentium 4 machine, despite a 2GHz clock speed. One word of caution, however: If you decide to go with Ubuntu, use 10.10, not 11.04. The Unity UI introduced in 11.04 is huge drag on performance for older hardware.

Your choice also really depends on your preference and experience with Linux. Some distros allow a lot of freedom, giving you . tons of choice. (Arch Linux, for example, is the absolute bare minimum - just the Linux core and a command line. You install all drivers, UI elements, etc. yourself, which makes it suited to experts only, but you get exactly what you want and nothing more.)

If you're interested, I found a good article here that talks about several lightweight distros. Some of them have already been mentioned here, but it might be worth looking at.

Last edited by Harakou (2011-05-29 14:23:49)

IHeartGaming · 2011-05-29 12:33:51

Harakou wrote:
Hm... what are your computer's specs? Performance really varies depending on the computer - Ubuntu is fine on my dual core 1.46GHz laptop but chugs along on my dad's Pentium 4 machine, despite a 2GHz clock speed. One word of caution, however: If you decide to go with Ubuntu, use 10.10, not 11.04. The Unity UI introduced in 11.04 is huge drag on performance.

Your choice also really depends on your preference and experience with Linux. Some distros allow a lot of freedom, giving you . tons of choice. (Arch Linux, for example, is the absolute bare minimum - just the Linux core and a command line. You install all drivers, UI elements, etc. yourself, which makes it suited to experts only, but you get exactly what you want and nothing more.)

If you're interested, I found a good article here that talks about several lightweight distros. Some of them have already been mentioned here, but it might be worth looking at.

I don't think Unity is a drag... reminds me of Macs.

16Skittles · 2011-05-29 13:17:12

I'm deciding to stick with DSL for now. I was told not to pass Ubuntu 8 anyways. Right now I just want to focus on customizing my system. (it already has DSL) It's ~1 GH processor, 20 GB Hard Drive, maybe a gig of ram.

For now, I'm just going to focus on getting the drivers and stuff working properly, as I can't currently access the net.I'll put in the driver that might work, (ar-some numbers) in on tuesday at school.

urhungry · 2011-05-29 13:22:27

Unity uses a significant amount of resources for an eight year old computer. I guess I'm kind of peculiar in what I want, if it has shiny buttons and the like I generally flee black to my minimal openbox/pekwm setup.

Edit: Hold on, I just saw your post. If you have a gig of RAM and a one gigahertz you can take pretty much anything. I was thinking more like my old laptop with 128 megs of RAM. Forget DSL, try installing an XFCE distro, although Xubuntu really isn't a very good one. Linux Mint XFCE, PCLinuxOS XFCE, Salix XFCE, Fedora XFCE or Linux Mint XFCE.

Last edited by urhungry (2011-05-29 13:31:31)

16Skittles · 2011-05-29 14:22:43

urhungry wrote:
Unity uses a significant amount of resources for an eight year old computer. I guess I'm kind of peculiar in what I want, if it has shiny buttons and the like I generally flee black to my minimal openbox/pekwm setup.

Edit: Hold on, I just saw your post. If you have a gig of RAM and a one gigahertz you can take pretty much anything. I was thinking more like my old laptop with 128 megs of RAM. Forget DSL, try installing an XFCE distro, although Xubuntu really isn't a very good one. Linux Mint XFCE, PCLinuxOS XFCE, Salix XFCE, Fedora XFCE or Linux Mint XFCE.

I dont actually know the stats. I'm pretty sure about the processor, but I don't know about the ram, ur probably right. (If I had windows, I could use my USB as ram DX)

Harakou · 2011-05-29 14:23:29

IHeartGaming wrote:
Harakou wrote:
Hm... what are your computer's specs? Performance really varies depending on the computer - Ubuntu is fine on my dual core 1.46GHz laptop but chugs along on my dad's Pentium 4 machine, despite a 2GHz clock speed. One word of caution, however: If you decide to go with Ubuntu, use 10.10, not 11.04. The Unity UI introduced in 11.04 is huge drag on performance.

Your choice also really depends on your preference and experience with Linux. Some distros allow a lot of freedom, giving you . tons of choice. (Arch Linux, for example, is the absolute bare minimum - just the Linux core and a command line. You install all drivers, UI elements, etc. yourself, which makes it suited to experts only, but you get exactly what you want and nothing more.)

If you're interested, I found a good article here that talks about several lightweight distros. Some of them have already been mentioned here, but it might be worth looking at.
I don't think Unity is a drag... reminds me of Macs.

Sorry, I meant to add on older hardware. I'll change that now.

urhungry · 2011-05-29 14:27:12

16Skittles wrote:
urhungry wrote:
Unity uses a significant amount of resources for an eight year old computer. I guess I'm kind of peculiar in what I want, if it has shiny buttons and the like I generally flee black to my minimal openbox/pekwm setup.

Edit: Hold on, I just saw your post. If you have a gig of RAM and a one gigahertz you can take pretty much anything. I was thinking more like my old laptop with 128 megs of RAM. Forget DSL, try installing an XFCE distro, although Xubuntu really isn't a very good one. Linux Mint XFCE, PCLinuxOS XFCE, Salix XFCE, Fedora XFCE or Linux Mint XFCE.
I dont actually know the stats. I'm pretty sure about the processor, but I don't know about the ram, ur probably right. (If I had windows, I could use my USB as ram DX)

If you install conky and then run it you can get a display of your computers stats.

16Skittles · 2011-05-29 19:10:34

I checked, and it appears that the factory specs are 256 megs of ram. any suggestions for that? DSL only uses 25, could I get something better?
this is the model.

Harakou · 2011-05-29 19:55:41

16Skittles wrote:
I checked, and it appears that the factory specs are 256 megs of ram. any suggestions for that? DSL only uses 25, could I get something better?
this is the model.

$1,560 for that?! I mean I'm sure it was worth it when it came out, but now...

Last edited by Harakou (2011-05-29 19:56:10)

16Skittles · 2011-05-29 19:57:14

My parents bought it back then. now computers are smaller and cheaper.
new gateway with 4 gigs of ram, 320 gig HD, i3 processor, 15.6" LCD for about half the cost.

Last edited by 16Skittles (2011-05-29 19:58:23)

urhungry · 2011-05-29 20:27:49

16Skittles wrote:
I checked, and it appears that the factory specs are 256 megs of ram. any suggestions for that? DSL only uses 25, could I get something better?
this is the model.

With 256 megabytes of RAM you could run LXDE, but not much above it. As usual, the the LXDE remixes of PcLinuxOS, Linux Mint, Fedora or Salix.

Mcsugarface · 2011-05-29 23:42:28

Well, I think that if you don't find a better upgrade you should stick to DSL, it's made to be very light and it supports an alright amount of things for older, less capable computers. The other ones are made to be lighter, but they still have to be a bit heavy, which could make your laptop have less memory space. Well, you choose.

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#1 2011-05-28 11:48:11

Which linux is better?

#2 2011-05-28 11:58:17

Re: Which linux is better?

#3 2011-05-28 12:07:22

Re: Which linux is better?

#4 2011-05-28 12:09:58

Re: Which linux is better?

#5 2011-05-28 12:10:36

Re: Which linux is better?

#6 2011-05-28 12:10:39

Re: Which linux is better?

#7 2011-05-28 12:17:01

Re: Which linux is better?

#8 2011-05-29 10:28:25

Re: Which linux is better?

#9 2011-05-29 10:29:29

Re: Which linux is better?

urhungry wrote:

#10 2011-05-29 12:31:29

Re: Which linux is better?

#11 2011-05-29 12:33:51

Re: Which linux is better?

Harakou wrote:

#12 2011-05-29 13:17:12

Re: Which linux is better?

#13 2011-05-29 13:22:27

Re: Which linux is better?

#14 2011-05-29 14:22:43

Re: Which linux is better?

urhungry wrote:

#15 2011-05-29 14:23:29

Re: Which linux is better?

IHeartGaming wrote:

Harakou wrote:

#16 2011-05-29 14:27:12

Re: Which linux is better?

16Skittles wrote:

urhungry wrote:

#17 2011-05-29 19:10:34

Re: Which linux is better?

#18 2011-05-29 19:55:41

Re: Which linux is better?

16Skittles wrote:

#19 2011-05-29 19:57:14

Re: Which linux is better?

#20 2011-05-29 20:27:49

Re: Which linux is better?

16Skittles wrote:

#21 2011-05-29 23:42:28

Re: Which linux is better?

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