Linux Distro for Old Laptop

[randumb]

My dad gave me an old Compaq laptop. It's got Pentium II 266mhz, 64mb RAM, and a 4gb hard drive. What's a good linux distro for running on old hardware like this?

I'd going to want a GUI (not gonna run in text-mode) for simple stuff like browsing (mozilla firebird) and documents (openoffice, or abiword if openoffice is too sluggish).

 

[Crusty]

Mandrake

 

[SpeedFreak03]

Thats not the Compaq Presario 1240 is it? I have one lol. Anyway, I would suggest Vector Linux. I have never tried it, but people say it works great on old computers! If that doesn't work out, then try Slackware.

 

[randumb]

Originally posted by: SpeedFreak03
Thats not the Compaq Presario 1240 is it? I have one lol. Anyway, I would suggest Vector Linux. I have never tried it, but people say it works great on old computers! If that doesn't work out, then try Slackware.

Hmm..., I've also heard about Vector Linux. I'll look into it. IIRC it's a minamalist version of slackware.

BTW, I've got a Compaq Presario 1655.

 

[lameaway]

Originally posted by: MCrusty
Mandrake

Yuck. Try the Morphix LightGUI CD. Sounds like exactly what you want. Morphix is a pre-configured Debian Live-CD distro... it will boot right off the CD, autodetect your hardware, and drop you into a usable GUI immediately - you can do an HD install from there if you like it. Just like Knoppix, but a little cleaner and pure Debian/unstable. The LightGUI CD a lightweight 203mb ISO with XFCE4, Mozilla Firebird, Abiword, GAIM, the GIMP, and... not a whole lot else, really. Anything you need, though, being that it's Debian, is just an "apt-get install" away. Try it out!

 

[randumb]

Originally posted by: lameaway

Originally posted by: MCrusty
Mandrake

Yuck. Try the Morphix LightGUI CD. Sounds like exactly what you want. Morphix is a pre-configured Debian Live-CD distro... it will boot right off the CD, autodetect your hardware, and drop you into a usable GUI immediately - you can do an HD install from there if you like it. Just like Knoppix, but a little cleaner and pure Debian/unstable. The LightGUI CD a lightweight 203mb ISO with XFCE4, Mozilla Firebird, Abiword, GAIM, the GIMP, and... not a whole lot else, really. Anything you need, though, being that it's Debian, is just an "apt-get install" away. Try it out!

Heh, I've got a Knoppix CD next to me to bring around if I need Linux. I'm not looking to try out Linux, I've already been using it for a while. I just wanted a good, lightweight distro that wouldn't bog down my old hardware. I tried Red Hat on it, but it was sluggish and annoying. From the suggestions, I'm currently looking at Vector Linux and Slackware.

 

[drag]

I've used vector linux on a old laptop. It works pretty well, too.

Also it's compatable with slackware packages, so you can use stuff developed for SLackware just fine.

Mandrake would probably suck, You can make it work, but what's realy the point when you have something that's geared towards low-end machines anyways?

 

[lameaway]

Dude. __HD install__. I'm not talking about trying out Linux either - you boot from the live-CD then run a simple installer to copy the preconfigured distro to the disk, and voila... a lightweight Debian GUI install with minimal effort. See here.

 

[MedicBob]

Check out Linux on Laptops

 

[jackdurdenfc]

Hey I am kinda new here but I would say that you should check out Mandrake. I am using Mandrake 9.1 on a

IBM thinkpad 390E
333MHZ Pentium II
128MB of memory

runs well and it accepted all my hardware including my 10/100 NIC and 56K modem...so check it out...talk to you later



Jack

 

[lameaway]

As a sidenote, on my own Powerbook G3 233mhz, I'm running Yellow Dog Linux and I couldn't be happier with it. I originally installed it because it's the only distro that adequately supports the Powerbook hardware out-of-the-box, but i found that it's actually more pleasant to install, customize, and use than either Mandrake or Red Hat. So if anyone reading this thread is interested in getting an old used laptop, definately look at the Apple hardware, as it is nicer than most anything else from the era and has a quality Linux distro out there to support it.

 

[groovin]

gentoo!! but i dont know about installing it on a laptop... performs great on legacy hardware though.

i would look at fluxbox, xfce, or icewm for the GUI, they are really light. i think ice and xfce would be the lightest of the bunch. forget kde or gnome... that might jsut crawl.

 

[Olias]

Gentoo is easy to administer when it comes to packages. Portage Rules !!!