P200 with 64MB RAM

KennyK · 05-12-2003, 01:05 AM

I have an older pc that I installed WinXP Pro on, and I noticed that the hard drive was taking a beating from the swap. So, I thought that I could install Linux and that I could speed it up. Well, It really took a beating on Redhat 9.0 after X started. Do you think that if I went to an older version of a distro, that it wouldn't take as much RAM? Or is it the version of X? Or what?

Any input would be great.

Regards

slakmagik · 05-12-2003, 01:59 AM

XP Pro on *that*? Geez. I'm surprised it would run at all. XP's a hog. This is a very frequently asked question - look around for more views. But I wouldn't say older, so much as slimmer. Try Vector or something - runs pretty good on a P100/32, so would go great on your setup. And, yeah, X is usually the bulk of resource eating, but it's definitely doable on something like that. It's even *doable* on a slow 486, but no fun. Anyway - go for a slimmer distro, try to optimize, don't overdo it, but you should be able to run pretty normally with something like Vector or maybe even a full Slack or something.

nakkaya · 05-12-2003, 02:09 AM

i am a redhat fan but slack will work on that machine but x will be slow no matter waht dis you use

q

neenee · 05-12-2003, 03:51 AM

[rant]
windows xp can be made to work at least as efficiently as windows
2000; it just takes some time and patience to stop + disable system
services, edit the registry, etc. people who say xp is more of a
hog than 2000 just have not tried hard enough to make xp work
for them.
[/rant]

as for light-weight distro's, almost every distro, even the major
ones, can be installed and configured in such a way that they
can run on low-end machines; even if you want to use x; there
are light window managers such as blackbox, fluxbox, openbox,
fvwm, fvwm95 and many others. check here for a list of most
of them, with useful descriptions and other info.

good luck.

carlywarly · 05-12-2003, 07:11 AM

If you install Vector, and choose the older version of XFree, 3.something, you should find it runs well. I've used Vector on a slow Laptop with 32 meg of ram, and it was fast.

yowwww · 05-12-2003, 07:51 AM

an older version of red hat should work better, but like others have said - you should try to configure it so it is using less resources
you could try something like 6.2 or around there, but just remember that a lot of the packages will be older.

KennyK · 05-12-2003, 10:28 AM

Thanks for the replies. I will keep hackin' at it. Maybe even go for the newer kernel and try to use an older version of X. Any thoughts on that?

Regards

Half_Elf · 05-13-2003, 07:27 AM

get out the X server and it will be fine.
You don't need all that cute GUI anyway.

KennyK · 05-13-2003, 09:22 AM

Actually, this machine is for my sister. She only uses it for web surfing, email and word processing. She is really new to computers in general. So basically, she needs the GUI. If I can't get a light distro install on there, I will have to put W98 in it. Oh well, at least I won't have to use it.

Regards

KennyK · 05-13-2003, 11:37 AM

Ok. I am going to give Vector a shot. However, their download links are broken. The only mirror sites that I found have a download speed of about 4Kb a sec. I am on a cable modem that will hit around 2Mb a second. Would it be out of line to ask if someone had an ftp site that was the Vector 3.2 SOHO iso that I could download it from?

Regards

Burke · 05-14-2003, 07:43 AM

Here you go.. always check LinuxISO.org

KennyK · 05-14-2003, 09:49 AM

Thanks for the reply. However, the link that is on that page is only a link back to Vector's download page and that is a broken link.

Anyone else?

Regards

Burke · 05-14-2003, 10:01 AM

My bad, guess I should have verified the link... The main distro site for their downloads is ibiblio.org.. according to ibiblio's website, they've got some extended maint. going on right now so a lot of their downloads are unavailable.

If you look at vector's website, they have a link for mirrors:
Here's a link that I did verify

ftp.webtrek.com

KennyK · 05-14-2003, 10:13 AM

That was the only other link that I could find in the US and it is the one that I was saying is downloading at around 4Kb a second.

Could you try to download from it and tell me your speed?

What would be cool is if someone with a good connection had it and put it on their site for me to download from.

Regards

Burke · 05-14-2003, 10:21 AM

I'm on Dual T-1's here at work... The other day, I pulled down about a Gig or so in less than 90 minutes...

Unfortunately, this particular site seems kinda slow - I'm only getting 4 KB/sec with Download Accelerator ... and only about 1 KB/sec without..

Options:
Someone else's website??
Wait for ibiblio to come back up with their FTP servers..
Wait for the download at 4KB

Good Luck