What would be a good linux distro for a laptop with a 700MHz CPU and 128MB RAM?
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What would be a good linux distro for a laptop with a 700MHz CPU and 128MB RAM?
Hi,
The obvious candidates would be Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux.
Your problem will be the 128Mb RAM as most distros want a lot more if you are going to use their GUI installers.
What make/model of lappy is it?
The laptop is a Compaq EVO N150. Ram is expandable 320MB if that helps.
I second DSL. You can run it as a live cd, and I am pretty sure that 128MB will be plenty.
Quote:
Minimum Requirements for DSL with X-window
- 486dx or 100% compatible processor
- 16mb ram (24mb recommended)
- dual-speed CDROM (quad-speed or better recommended)
- 1.44mb floppy drive (for boot floppy, if needed)
- VGA monitor and video card
- a mouse (serial, ps/2, usb)
Recommended Specs
- Pentium 200MHz
- 64MB ram
- 8x CDROM
- 1.44mb floppy drive (for boot floppy, if needed)
- VGA monitor and video card capable of handling at least 16 bit color
- a mouse with a scroll wheel
Puppy Linux will work, and your processor is plenty fast enough.
I would suggest more RAM, particularly if you are going to use an office suite. Particularly as you are probably sharing memory with the video chipset ;)Quote:
Therefore, you should use the higher kernel number with newer PCs (but the reverse rule, using lower kernel number, does not apply to older PCs - you can use any Puppy version with older PCs, just make sure you have at least 128 MB memory/RAM to get the speed which Puppy wants to give you).
I would suggest that you take a look at both and pick the one you like. They will both run on a live CD.
I'm trying them both now. Looks like DSL isn't auto-detecting the NIC. I'll try Puppy before getting to heavy into config.
Hmmm,
I would hold fire on the RAM until you have tried them. Your video card is only taking 8Mb.
From what I can see your lappy has 64Mb of fixed RAM and a single expansion slot, that will support 256Mb. From what I have seen over here you might want to go for a 128 strip? (128 =GBP18, 256 = GBP75:eek:) Obviously that will mean having to remove the existing 64Mb strip. That would give you 192Mb, and I am sure that gore runs a box like that with a much slower processor?
I would be reluctant to try any of the heavyweight distros on less than 256Mb, and would prefer 384Mb.........or better:D.......and with their own video card.
I have that 433MHz Celeron with 192 MBs RAM and an 8 MB video card still running FreeBSD 8.0-RELEASE. No lag issues or downtime. I ran Slackware on it too. Works good :)
@ gore,
Thanks mate, I remembered you had something along those lines from previous conversations.
What would you actually suggest here?
I guess that we have to consider 128Mb (-8) and maybe 192Mb?
I cannot believe i'm about to type this, but ubuntu netbook remix would be perfect for that spec laptop > http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook
once again i cannot believe i just did that.. :(