which linux ditributon is best for a low spec-pc toshiba satelite laptop

Alvo13 · 03-25-2012, 10:51 AM

I have a toshiba satelite laptop L20-181
it has an intel celeron 1.6 Ghz processor,
192 Mb of RAM,
ATI RADEON XPRESS 200M SERIES
AND A FUJITSU HARD DISK 40 GB

I want to know wkich is the proper linux to install.Also, i want it to be easy in use because it is my first time using linux.Can i install ubuntu;Zorin os;or any other similar to those;

snowday · 03-25-2012, 11:26 AM

Welcome to the forums!

If this is your first time using Linux, I recommend a user-friendly distribution such as Ubuntu, which has the following minimum hardware requirements: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...emRequirements

frankbell · 03-25-2012, 08:51 PM

192 MB Ram is marginal at best for most contemporary Linux distributions.

You might want to take a look at Puppy or Damn Small Linux, although I think DSL may be a stalled project.

And there is always Tinycore.

If you can add more RAM, many modern distros will be quite happy with the Celeron processor.

jefro · 03-25-2012, 08:54 PM

I'd suggest Slitaz or Austrumi.

DavidMcCann · 03-26-2012, 11:58 AM

The CPU will be OK: it's faster than the one on my laptop. But 192MB is small. You can get several setups that require a lot of work, but for something that installs straight off the CD I suggest AntiX.

An alternative would be Salix in its Fluxbox or LXDE versions, but I don't think you'd find those as easy. Last year I'd have recommended Vector Light, but the latest version of that is having a bit of codec trouble, as did Slitaz when I tried it last. Puppy is a bit hit and miss; on some computers it works well, on others strange things happen.

catchpole · 04-03-2012, 02:19 AM

I tried Puppy on my Toshiba Satellite Pro L20 but I couldn't get the wifi to work.
I'm sure its possible but beyond my capabilities at the moment. (I'll fix it when XP finally dies.)
The good thing is you can try it without disturbing anything else on your system.

snowday · 04-03-2012, 09:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by catchpole

I tried Puppy on my Toshiba Satellite Pro L20 but I couldn't get the wifi to work.
I'm sure its possible but beyond my capabilities at the moment. (I'll fix it when XP finally dies.)
The good thing is you can try it without disturbing anything else on your system.

Welcome to the forums! If you tell us your wifi chipset, I'm sure one of us can help. I assume Puppy has a Terminal? If so you can use the following command to get info on your hardware:

Code:

lspci

or for a USB wifi adapter:

Code:

lsusb

catchpole · 04-20-2012, 01:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by snowpine

Welcome to the forums! If you tell us your wifi chipset, I'm sure one of us can help. I assume Puppy has a Terminal? If so you can use the following command to get info on your hardware:

Code:

lspci

or for a USB wifi adapter:

Code:

lsusb

Hi Snowpine,

I got the Toshiba Satellite Pro L20 laptop to work with an Edimax PC Card as in:
http://www.edimax.co.uk/en/produce_d..._id=1&pl2_id=1
Puppy found it and it worked straight away without any setting up.
So the Toshiba can run Linux and get online.

However I did an "lspci" and found the integral Atheros AR2413 802.11bg NIC (rev 01)
It would be nice to get the integral WIFI to work.

[Sorry about the delay in replying. I had to concentrate on getting another computer to work.]

I would like to pass on the information about the PC Card to other Toshiba users.
Where can I put it?
Is there a driver for the Atheros?

snowday · 04-20-2012, 03:11 PM

I found some info on Atheros AR2413 here: http://www.linuxwireless.org/en/users/Drivers/ath5k

My netbook has Atheros AR5001 and it works out-of-the box with every recent Linux distro.

Now that you know your exact chipset, you can do a forum Search of these and Puppy Linux forums, good luck!

DavidMcCann · 04-21-2012, 11:58 AM

For 192MB (or even 128!) you can run AntiX, Bodhi, the LXDE version of Salix, or ZorinOS. There are a few others, but these are the user-friendly ones. Tiny Core is not friendly and Puppy saves space on the installation disk by leaving out all the program help files!

catchpole · 04-22-2012, 08:36 AM

I got this form the ArchLinux.org website.
It worked for me using Puppy 5.3 with a Toshiba Satellite Pro L20.
I didn't do the "rmmod athe5k"
The post is from "Mustard"

------------------------------
https://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=120684

I just hit this bug today myself with a Toshiba Satellite laptop and Atheros 2413 chip. It would ping fine, but would not load a web page.

rmmod ath5k

modprobe ath5k nohwcrypt

Then restarting the network worked for me.

To automate this at boot time you can add this line to a file in /etc/modprobe.d/

options ath5k nohwcrypt

The file you add it to can be your /etc/modprobe.d/modprobe.conf file if you like. That is the choice I made.

sayhello_to_the_world · 01-09-2015, 11:51 AM

hello dear, Alvo13, jefro, DavidMcCann, frankbell,snowpine, catchpole, snowpine,

very intersting thread -sure thing!!

besides the both notebooks, AKoya and Samsung (see my sig.) i have a Toshiba l 20 112.

see this link: http://www.toshiba.de/discontinued-p...llite-l20-112/

sure thing - Puppy-Linux, Damned Small-Linux, AntiX, Bodhi, the LXDE version of Salix, or ZorinOS. are intersting distributions.
And yes there is also TinyCore

but believe it or not: i tried openSUSE 12.1 on the toshiba l 20 112. It worked.

and at the weekend i will try out to install openSUSE 13.2

and yes: i will try out to extend the RAM to 2 GB

how to you think about the ideas