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My second computer is an AMD 500Mhz, with only 64mb RAM at the moment, but getting more memory over the weekend, hoping for 256Mb.
I'm not using it for anything really powerfull, just want to run a test server at home for when I'm designing websites. Its much easier than uploading to a host.
The thing is, I understand the PC is very low spec, but I'. just wondering what version of what distro would be best suited to work with this machine? I've put redhat 9 on, but its pretty slow, wil increasing the memory to 1gig make much difference, or will the processor bog it down?
I've tried redhat 7.3, this is quicker, but some things still take there time.
Believe it or not, that's a rather common question around here There are a number of slimmer distros you could try; VectorLinux is good from what I hear (though I've not tried it). Slackware or Debian are very customizable, and should work great with a little tweaking. I'd suggest going with the latest version you can find.
One of the best ways to improve performance, especially with only 64MB RAM, is to run a lightweight window manager like Blackbox, XFCE, or the like, rather than Gnome or KDE.
Had a look at vectorlinux, looks very impressive, takes up roughly 500meg of hd space!!!! Shame though, coz HD space isnt something I am short of. I'll download and install it on one of my HD's.
If your mainly using this machine as a test type server to serve webpages your designing, don't worry about using X on it. You'd only be wasting space and resources unless of course your using this machine for other functions as well maybe needing the GUI.
Originally posted by fuelinjection I've been looking at slackware, would people recommend this?
Does it have its own standard GUI?
Standard GUI? What's that? It comes with KDE, Gnome, Window Maker and many others you can choose from and also choose which one you want default with during installation.
Also, if I continue to run redhat, if it runs a little slow and I need it to run slightly quicker, is there anyway to exit the gui, enter text mode, but keep apache and mysql running, then, if I need to, enter the qui again. (similar to dos years ago, where you could exit windows to dos, then by typing 'win' enter windows again?)
I'll give vector a go first, seeing as its only 1 cd, installation doesnt look so simple though. If you cant boot by cd it talks about copying files onto the HD.
Distribution: Slackware / Debian / *Ubuntu / Opensuse / Solaris uname: Brian Cooney
Posts: 503
Rep:
Redhat
to your question of entering and exiting the gui, the answer is yes. Change the systems default runlevel to 3 (which is command line) Start the GUI by typing "startx"
Alternativley, you can switch between run levels when your are root using the "init" command
init 3 takes you to cli
init 5 takes you to gui
Always running in runlevel 3, and using startx is better in my opionion, because when you change runlevels different services may not be set to start in both if your not careful.
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