Hello!
I have an old notebook Toshiba M45 (probably S-359) with Pentium M 1.86GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB disk and Intel GMA 900 (I'm not sure with the last item). It works quite good
Now I'm using PCLinuxOS 2011 with KDE - it's working very good, but sometimes KDE isn't "fast" as I want.
Laptop has a performance at the same level as the new netbooks, so I think that optimized Linux isn't bad idea .
Can you post your suggestions? Sometimes I programm in C/C++ and create websites. I prefer rolling-release distros and I don't want waste time on edit files in /etc and compile everything. I just want to work, listen the music, surf the web and sometimes write a few documents.
Regards,
Adam

If you are used to PCLinuxOS and feel that KDE is too slow on that machine just change the desktop environment to something lighter, like XFCE, LXDE or Enlightenment.

I'm impressed with bodhi on a crappy netbook with a gma500 piece of junk - never heard of it till recently. Had to compile my own kernel to get decent (2D) video though - just making its way (finally) into mainline.

I think you probably know enough to recommend slackware with XFCE to you.

Pros: set it up once and forget it. Has everything, make your own packages for installing and uninstalling. Update automagically every 6 months or so if you want to.

CONS: You do have to set it up once. They don't hold your hand, and expect a minimum of knowledge. No dependency tracking, so you can install something without correct dependencies.

ldd <program-name> |grep found
is the way to sort dependencies.

You have to get away from gnome & kde if you want to do stuff. This box is AthlonXP @ 2.2Ghz w/1Gig and small disk usage. I'm running slackware and would not change.

I am going to say go with Slackware as well. I have slack running on a really old laptop and it runs good.

Hi all!
Hmm I think that Slackware is too difficult* for me, Arch Linux may be better.
*I have used Linux for 3 years (Ubuntu, Fedora-mostly, Debian) and I don't have experience with "hard-core" distributions, I like from Red Hat's forge

Actually, I wouldn't say Arch is much easier than Slackware, but it does fit your rolling release criteria. I did have Arch on a IBM T41 which is similarly spec'ed to your Toshiba, it ran great with XFCE. I currently run Arch on an older netbook with the 1.6ghz Atom and have no problems with it either.

I also had it on a very old netbook, a first generation EeePC with the underclocked Celeron running at 570Mhz with 512mb of RAM, it ran pretty well with a light environment, but I switched to Tiny Core on that one because I kept running out of space on the 2gb SSD.

I prefer Xfce rather than LXDE. Hmm to be honest, I'm a little afraid to use Slackware on my notebook.

May I ask what you are really searching for? In your first post you stated that you wantThis successfully rules out Arch (rolling release, but you have to edit files for configuration), Slackware (not rolling release, you have to edit files for configuration), Bodhi (not rolling release, easy to configure).

So the questions are: Do you really need rolling release (I don't see why that would be necessary when all you do is some "regular" stuff and a little bit of programming/web design)?
Are you really so uncomfortable with editing text files for configuration?
Which seems to be more negative for you, editing textfiles or not being rolling release?

As far as I can see there is only one distribution out there that is rolling release and easy to configure: PCLinuxOS.

With 1GB I would use fluxbox. And slackware not really hard to setup plus there's a separate forum just for slackware install help.

1 members found this post helpful.

I don't think that notebook is that bad. Live cd's are the way to go for look and feel but they will be much slower.

Might peek at the latest Vector. Looks good.

I have run Arch, it is pretty good. But the suggestion to try Vector should not be passed up. I like what I have seen and played with in Vector 7. Would it replace Gentoo as my favorite, no but is the next one on my list of preferences now.

I have a Fujitsu with 1.73GHz processor and 512MB ram ... Debian with XFCE was a dream (compiz even ran decently with most effects and options on) and I was hardly ever above the 40% ram range ... Currently though, I use Ubuntu with flux at at start I am below 20% and most programs don't use much more so I rarely go over 30. I'd say XFCE and fluxbox as far as the lighter desktops go and you can use them on whatever distro you are comfy with.

Okay, thanks for suggestions. I decided to switch to PCLinuxOS with Xfce