What distro is best for an older laptop?
 

I am having trouble with Mandriva but can't seem to get any help on it so what other distro would be as powerful in features that will work on an Asus 28600 with 128 ram which I may be able to increase to almost 200, and a 20 gig hdd.

I loaded unbunto. It was nice I reaally liked it but it seemed to lack alot.

I would GREATLY apriciate some advice on this as I want this laptop to be Linux not windows.

Thanks.......
:scratch:

I think the Search Funtion is the best distro.

Fedora Core perhaps?

I tried Mandriva, Fedore 5, ubuntu, suse 10.1, on this little laptop and mandrive would not even load the others loaded but it took hours and they ran like molasses. I wiped it and put windows back on.
I grabbed another laptop it has a transmeta chip in it about 600mhz but posts as a '1 giga pro' i ghz processor and it has almost 400 mgs of pc133 ram.

Mandrive actually danes to load but still pooches. Fedore and the rest run very, very slow. Ubuntu had a little pick up to it.

I am looking for a distro that won't pooch out but will play dvd's and burn cd's and surf the net and word process without any performance issues.
Windows can do it and Linux is thousands of times more supirior.

HELP!!!!!:cry:

FWIW, I have installed slackware successfully on even smaller laptops (a Toshiba Tecra 740 with 166 MHz and 80 Mb and an IBM Thinkpad 365 with even less memory). I actually compiled R (a statistics package and language) from source on the Toshiba. I used XFCE for the window manager on these machines.

You may have to get the DVD stuff working by hand, but if you don't mind getting your hands dirty ...

Depends how old your laptop is. Kinda old? Then Debian is lean and powerful. If your laptop is really old, try the absolutely fantastic Damn Small Linux (make sure to include the so called myDSL extentions to make full use of DSL capabilities).

Which flavor of Windows did you put on that ran faster than any Linux?

This is really unusual. I'm wondering if the processors in the laptops in question have a throttle on them (SpeedStep or something like that). On early mobile Pentium III's, you could set this to a static level in BIOS. An 'Applet' in Windows may be able to override this.

See if everything is normal in BIOS. It's really unusual that Linux will run slower than Windows, unless you're using a somewhat older flavor of Windows.

Thank you everyone I will try these.

Sonnik in response to your windows question, it was win 2000. BUT let me say I am not praising win over lin.

I was using an asus 28600 850 with almost 200 in mem. Mandrive would not load, suse did but you had to wait qn eternity between each mouse click. umbuntu actually ran but really hesitant. the screen refreshes were like looking at still frame photography.
Red hat 9 ran very slow but the best.
I scrapped the ausus project loaded win2k and gave it ot my daughter for cd's and school.
I am know using the wifes laptop, an ecs (model? not in front of me at the moment and I can't remember right off the top of my head) with a trans meta 1 giga pro, but the actual speed is somehting like 600 - 650, and almost 400 in ram.

Mandrive, suse, all loaded but ran like molasses. Red hat runs pretty good but some hesitation.

I thought I would give aLiux a try and Gentoo as well as theier websights reported very litte hardware needs.

I had win 200 on this laptop and it played dvd's and some games fine. I would like to be able to do the same with Linux, and I would think Linux would do it smoother and better, which always used to be the case but I must say I am a little shocked that windows is doing better ont his older hardware.
I would MUCH RATHER it be linux.

I need dvd viewing, cd burning, word processing with openoffice, net, email, some low end older games (not reall important on this one) and viewing VERY LARGE docs, and auto config samba (as I suck at setting samba up).

Can mandrive be slimmed considerably and still do this? Or Fedora? (I am a red hat lover, but will use anything that works well on this).

Thanks in advance everyone.

Statguy,
I did load slack on the asus and it was very slow.
I have not loaded it on the ecs yet. I will try that.
Does slack have dvd viewing and cd burning biult in or do you have to add it?

Sure. you just need to kill all the non-needed services, unload not-needed modules and run something fast like fluxbox on your desktop.

However, if I may, as a former long-time Mandrake/Mandriva user I can only urge you to drop it and switch to Debian. I did this 18 month ago and I am in heaven! Sure, there are some new ways of getting things done which you need to get used to, but that is no big deal. However, you get a vastly superior distro and the choice of 18000+ applications. And Debian is way faster out of the box.

think about it!

cheers,

VS

Vectorlinux should give you all you need IMO :)

I am using the ECS now. I loaded ubuntu on it and it runs but slow. The
ECS is a 600mhz processor but it is a transmeta and is billed at running the eqivalent of a 1ghz. I have almost 400 in ram.
I tried gentoo but was ver, very, slow and I could not get the install running. Alinux ran the best so far but the install sucks. Great gui though.

I will try vector and debian.

Forgive me, I am a newbie, but how do I unload a module and unneeded services? How do I know what ones are unneeded?
I have consulted how to's in the past but they helpfulness is very limited as I have found they are written by programmers for programmers and the lingo is alien to me. Some, though, are pretty clear and helpful.

Is vector maintained? Will it run the multimedia?

I tried installing an app in aLinux, an rpm which it says it can handle, and according to kpackage it installed ok but darned if I can find an icon to run it. It didn't put one in the program list and I searched the drive acording to the file list in kpackage, and found nothing. AARRGGGHHHH!!!

I love linux and several years ago used mandrake for a long time before switching to red hat, (Used all the auto config'd stuff) but this is getting frustrating.
I want a linux box instead of windows to do all my stuff on. Oh well I guess it's all an edgucation, right?

I noticed debian was 14 cd's, I am assuming it does not nessesarily load all 14 (unless you tell it to) I alony have 30 gig and am trying to get away from the bloat.

Anyway, sorry for the venting and thanks alot for your help. I will try to debian and vector tried out this week.

Debian, installed correctly, is one, 100MB .iso. Get it here. Yes, you do want Tesing (Etch), not Stable (Sarge).

For a description of a light, quick set-up, read post #32 on this thread.

Lets try again ... when someone recommends something I think a google about the recommendation is appropiate & not a question of does it really excist .. .

Yes Vector is mainatined - there will be a new Standard edition based on Slack 10.1 soon.

As its Slack based it does not use rpm but tgz packages - linuxpackages.net/org ... is great e.g. for finding them.

& with Vector U dont need all the command line service unloading etc - there is a GUI - sorry Im in a bit of a mood.

Your system IMO is not soo low end - 200 of RAM is plenty.

Wini_g

Not quite sure how to take your comment, sounds a little like an insult. Don't know whay I did to provoke it. If I am worng then forgive the response. I DO APRICIATE THE HELP.

Regaurdless it might comfort you to know I went ot google after responding and looked it up and now have the iso, and install and admin man printed to try it out tonight.

Thanks for the help.

Okay - not trying to activly insult - its my fault for overreacting - good luck with the install :)

rickh,

Thank you.
One thing I do not have net at home. Living on the cheap right now. I have to download here at work or at the net cafe. So the net install won't help at the moment, although I would love to try it, just for the expirience of installing an OS of the net - very cool!

So I am downloading the cd iso's... Do I need all 14?
I only wnat my wireless to work, open office2, a good dvd player, music cd player, and a media player that - if possible - will play all the standard media formats on the net, i.e. .mov. wmv, .mpg, .avi etc...
Now if possible after that I would like to hook up my digital camera and download photos, which I assume would not be diff if it is like windows and sees it like another removable drive... I need to research it.

One other thing, can someone point me to a good site with how to's in english for us non programmer types?

Thanks,:newbie:

http://www.tldp.org

Guides & infos should be the thing you are looking for & also simply search here on Lq - AFAIK :)

EDIT : add : the massive amount at http://www.yolinux.com :)

Vectorlinux ones : ftp://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distribu...als/index.html

& MORE : http://www.vectorlinux.com/forum1/


Now U should have all info needed :)

Yolinux.... Very cool! I like this site so far. Some of the how to's I have looked at are pretty straight forward. let's hope the ones I need are...

look at the 'services' first. That the stuff that is running on your computer most of the time. You can do
and press 'spacebar' to scroll through the list of possible services running on your computer. These 'services' are listening on your ports waiting for a command to activate them. Then you need to look into which of these are actually running on your machine (remember - the list at /etc/services is just a reference )

you can also look a daemons running (try 'top' or 'ps aux' to see what is going on)

try to read up on what you find and see what you don't need. it could well be that you have a full webserver like apache running or a printer daemon without being connected to a printer. There is plenty of stuff like NFS, Appletalk, etc. which migh be running 'just in case' in a distro which wants to do everything for you. I am not saying that this is the case with RH - only that this is something you might want to look into (besides, it is interesting to see what kind of processes are running on a machine and what they do).

As for basic books, I would reccommend 'Running Linux 5th edition' and 'Linux in a Nutshell 5th edition', both published by O'Reilly. They will be useful no matter what distro you use!

Good luck!

VS

Thank You vees!!!!!

This does help. I wwas reaching a point of frustration and about to give up ocmpletely. I wanted a ditro to run as well as windows, right out of the box on this older sys. (Don't get me wrong, I am not insulting linux) but it is frustrating to click the mouse and have to wait ahile each time.

On Another note-

Last night, as suggested to me, I loaded vector linux and it ran better but was not that great. It was ot very user friendly (but it was manageable) and it ran the best up to this point and had some very pleasing eye candy but still bogged. Then I loaded Debian and it ran the best of all but I have to hunt all over creation to configure it. It only gives me 800 resolution when all other distros gave me 1024. The only interface I find will let me change it but only to 800 and below nothing over 800.
The KDE in debian is very nice too, it lets me tell it not to run all the gui affectations so it does not bog the system so much. This helped alot.
I was always afraid of debian becasue debian and slack are not to be touched unless you are a bonified guru, which leaves me out and in the dust. But this is truely nice. Maby I will take a deep breath and try the infamous slack next and see if it hurts or not.

Now if I can get the setting to where I like them, and do as vees is suggesting maby this laptop can get to linux fulltime and I won't have to put win2k back on.

ONE OTHER THING,
Should open office 2 take a VERY long time to open up? (sys: ecs laptop - 384 ram - transmeta 1 gigapro cpu (600mhz))

Thanks, I will try this tonight vees.:newbie:

I recently installed Slackware 10.2 and Dropline Gnome on my daughter's 1 Ghz Toshiba laptop after she had virus problems with Windows. We set it up to dual boot for her.

It takes a long time to install and configure (updates, 2.6.16 kernel compile, install Dropline, add additional packages, etc). but Slackware and Dropline have really brought the old machine bck to life for her. She plays dvd and divx movies, connects to her ipod, and generally leaves Windws behind as much as possible.

This is her first experience with Linux and it is working out very well, with excellent overall performance on the older hardware.

Bob

Hi cayzar,

KDE is really nice for sure, but it is a ressource-intensive desktop. Try Fluxbox. It is beautiful and very light and fast. That's what I ended up using most of the time.

OpenOffice is a memory HOG! While I used to like OO, I get really pissed at the bloat which OO 2 generates. You might wanna ask yourself whether you need all the OO features. Because if the answer is 'no' you might want to try either Koffice's KWord or even Abiword. These two are lighter and faster.

For slower machines the difference between KDE+OO versus FluxBox+Abiword is ABSOLUTELY HUGE!

A well configured GNU/Linux box should run *well* on a 450MHz processor with 128MB and very decently on a 300MHz with 64MB. If the choice is between processor power and RAM always pick more RAM.

I really want to stree something here: DEBIAN IS NOT, NOT AT ALL, for "gurus". Heck - I am really a glorified newbie (ex-Mandraker) and I had NO problems switching to Debian. Also, if the Debianb-Sarge installer gives you a headache (which it should not, its rather good except for sometimes sound - then run Alsaconf - and X) you can always install an almost-Debian with Ubuntu or, even better and closer to Debian, Kanotix.

The Debian, Kanotix and Ubunutu communites are very helpful. For Debian, make sure to post on www.debianhelp.org and you will see for yourself how helpful folks there are. And any problem they could not solve WILL be solved by the Debian mailing list.

I should add that the folks here on the Debian forum are very good also.

Yes, Debian *used* to be on the harder side (Woody could be nasty to install). This is LONG OVER.

Try it - it will be the best IT decision of your life!

Cheers,

VS

Well I got DSl running on a old Compaq deskpro 2000 and it runs like a charm!

DSL is for sure the most capable distro which can be run on older hardware. In particular when DSL's "extension" (downloadable and automatically installable applications) are included.

I run DSL on a 450MHz laptop, all of it in RAM wth the 'toram' option and its fantastic. The backup/restore option automatically backs up all my work on my hard disk, it is hyper fast and beautiful to the eye. I love it.

I'm not sure what the problem with the various laptops you're trying is, but you're probably going to have to do some learning and tinkering to get the system to run as quickly as you need.

I've never had issues with Slackware being slow, myself. Disable the running of services you don't happen to need (apache, sendmail, sshd), use a lightweight windowmanager (fluxbox or maybe IceWM), and you really ought to be fine.

You'll also eventually want to recompile the kernel for your system. IIRC, most kernels are compiled for the i386 architecture by default.

I have been loading linux on three different laptops all older. I got rid of two of them am only working with the ECS 1 gigapro (600 mhz) 384 ram, laptop now.

I have been installing choosing default options, as I am a newbie. all have run very slow.
As a said debian ran the best but the video will not go over 800x 600 when all the others gave me 1024. Dunno what is going on there.

Do not get me wrong I am not insulting linux here, but I am getting frustrated.Awhile back I used linux alot. I user mandrake and it was slow but on 'linuxnewbie.org' they said it had a lot of bloat and to try red hat. I did and it was awesome. red hat 5 then 6 then 7 the I dropped out becasue not time and my kids want ed to play games on the computer - yada, yada, yada..... But that was a desktop and fairly powerfulr for the day and age.

These laptops have been my first laptop-linux expiriences and I am ready to give up and go back to windows.

No offense but win2k ran much better than any flavor I have tried.

I WOULD MUCH RATHER LINUX, for a number of reasons though.

question, why don't I need to shut down all the services and and recompile kernals on a desktop but but I do on a laptop? From everything I have read on the distros I tried and from the help here, all of them should run fine on this laptop, but none of them do. No fancy installing or heavy customizing, just put in the disk and take the defaults.

I just want to load it and run with it. However I will take a look at the services and see if I can find the information on shutting the services down. when I ran one of the commands suggested here, I saw a number of items running but without some sort of key or reference you cannot tell what they do.

The help and advice here has been great and I am apriciative for it.

However if this laptop cannot get up and running smoothly soon then it's back to winblows and wait for the possibility of maby getting better hardware to handle the load linux presents.

i'd go with VectorLinux. www.vectorlinux.com

i'm using the soho version on my thinkpad 390x, pIII 450mhz, 128mb-ram and i'm using fluxbox as my windowmanager. you cant go wrong with vectorlinux.

when i have everything working, plus firefox and abiword running in the background, only 38mb of my ram is taken up!

vector is slackware based so its rock solid as well, but has hardware autodetection and autosetup scripts that are easy to use, and also a (graphical) package manager with all the repository links included.

only one cd to download :D

Tried vector too. Very nice. I liked it.

I wonder why these are so smooth for everyone else. I am selecting only defaults on any given run of the mill install, and these distros all run like molasses. AARRGGGHHH!!!!!

Anyway, no net at home and am at work now. will try more of this tonight.

need to find out how to identify a service then find out how to shut it off for good (so I don't have to do it every boot).

Anyone know of a good distro that will run on an etch a'sketch?:scratch:

hmmm ... you MUST be having hardware problems with your notebook/laptop

There is no way a fully working laptop with 384MB RAM & 600MHz processor should be anything but really fast under Vector or any of the other light distros or even heavier ones as well.

Well I lost track of what distro U have installed but what capacity hard disk do you have & what do you get for "hdparm -T /dev/hda" ?

Or else try something like Puppy-Linux or DSL which run purely from RAM - but that would be avoiding a problem & not fixing it IMO.

Sorry I cant find a Linux via Google for the etch-a-sketch but U can control one via Linux :

http://www.gadgetopia.com/post/3225

http://www.ale.org/archive/ale/ale-2.../msg00390.html

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS9257262400.html

What distro are you now using ?

I use Suse 10 on a ridiculously slow laptop w/ a small harddrive. This is the only distro that I got to even boot on this laptop. I tried fedora, linspire, redhat, ubuntu, and slackware; suse is the only one that worked.

http://greauxpc.org

No hardware issues. It's fine under windows and the diff linux distros - just slow.

The laptop is a cheapo ECS. I am beginning to think half the issue is the transmeta processor and or a cheap motherboard bus. Just speculating at this point. I need to read up on transmeta.

When I ran linux on my desktop it flew. As I mentioned before these 3 laptops were my first linux on laptop expirience, and all three were running fine hardware-wise.

Very busy last night, still need ot research services, so I can tell what it is that is running when I punch up the list.
I have done this once before, and am not looking foreward to having to do it and that is redo a kernal. Vector was small tight but still a bit slow, debian ran very well so all this leads me to think that the othe half of the issue has to be in the os. so maby a slimmed down kernal?

Any recomendations on kenral modification?
I definatly need dvd player/cd burner support, usb support, wireless nic and wired nic support, modem support, and pshycological support for having gone through all this. LOL!

believe me Suse 10.1 linux is the best distro ever wonderful hardware detection and support ... it detected every damn piece of my hardware and had automatically installed drivers for my latest intel 3945 abg card which no other distro could do and i had to struggle a lot to make it work ...
but since i installed Suse it workd like a charm and i didnt had to install anything else to make any thing work ...

I understand. Now here is what you have to understand:

1) all 'easy and do everything' distos a la Mandrake are going to be bloated out of the box. By bloated I mean bloated by comparison with other GNU/Linux distros. A Mandrake out of the box with all the bells n whistles and eye candy is still FAR FAR FAR less bloated then Windows (and not to mention the hyper-bloatware champion of the world: OSX).

2) 'leaner and meaner' distros are going to be a touch harder to use just because instead of doing everything for you (a la Mandrake) they will let you mare more calls. That is in particular true during install. Even Debian will install more stuff by default if you choose the option to install in just a few clicks.

3) there is simply no way you can install bleeding-edge software out of the box on old hardware and get lightening fast performance. So here is the rule: any use of old hardware will be an exercices in compromises. For example, you actually install bleeding edge software on old hardware as long as you are willing to spend some time tweaking you machine. Or you can install older but rock-solid software without any tweaking (like Damn Small Linux does). Or you can install bleeding edge stuff out of the box, but you machine will runs much slower.

Also. in choosing between GNU/Linux and Windows you have to consider many issues such as:

1) the support you can get
2) security/stability
3) availabilty of software
4) legal limitations, or lack thereof, of the use of the software you install
5) costs

I urge you to carefully read the following article before making a decision:

http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Please come back if you have any questions!

Good luck and kind regards,

VS

vees,
Excellent article. I have sent it to friends in the past. I do not agree with all the writers sentiments which are more subjective than objective but it was a good article. I apriciate the sentiment, especially since you've been helping me sort throught hte services, however I think there may be some confusion here between have performance issues as apposed to some culture shock after coming from windows. This is not a perception issue. It is a performance issue.
I used linux on the desktop for a few years (but am still very much a novice newbie, I admit), but never a laptop and it is a different world there, at least for me. All I can say or do is tell you what steps I went through and what hardware and distros I used.

The first laptop was a gateway 2500 series, 128 ram. I attempted to load mandriva which would not. knopmyth loaded but errored out on the tv tunor (big suprise there since there wasn't one loaded). red hat 9 loaded, but ran relatily smooth but slow.

The second was an asus s8600 with almost 200 ram, mandriva loaded but was so slow you moved the physical mouse then waited for the cursor to move to see where it landed. I loaded several other distros all of which ran very slow.

Put windows back on those two and got rid of them.

The third is the wifes ECS with 30gig hdd, 384 ram, transmeta 1gigapro(actually 600mhrz) processor.
All distros loaded, mandriva was painful. All others ran but with performance hits.
All the hardware worked fine.
All laptops were older admittadly but as atested by other users here, they have older ones working fine.
All distros installed without doing anything fancy or complicated, choosing defaults.

They issue is not one of perception but performance.
As I stated previously I am wondering if the issue could be between a transmeta processor and the the linux kernal? Becasue red hat 9 with an older kernal ran very well, a little bog, but not bad.
vector ran relativly smooth but still slow and as I understand it it is a minimalist distro. Debian ran very well. I am suprised by how much I like it. I had always avoided it thinking it to 'leet' for me. however from the install menu I choose nothing but the desktop enviros, so nothing else should be loaded. It ran pretty smooth. So this all leads me to think it is something like support for hardware and/or stuff in the newer distros and kernal.
Others are reporting excellent performance with older hardware but are using intel and amd, so I wonder if part os it could be the transmeta (maby not). So between the two I think lies the issue.
Hence looking at trimming down the kernal for stuff I do not need, and looking at the services as you have been helping with.

I may be getting a new laptop anyway (looking at an HP or HP Compaq becasue of the lower prices) which will alleaviate alot because of the better newer hardware. However I would still like to figure this out (with help of course otherwise all is lost) to get this running, for now, and if anything for the knowlegde of it for any future needs.
(I am a lousy typest and speller - sorry)

Again, Thank you to everyone for help on this. I am going to try to get to the services issue tonight and then later learn more on configuring and compiling kernals.

Thanks,
Cayzar

Ok. Sorry if I got sidetracked.


Laptops are more of a pain, in particular the friggin Winmodems..

I am sold on that. Nothing, nothing in GNU/Linux or BSD comes even close to Debian. Other distros all have their good points, and some are top notch, but none offer the cumulative array of Debian capabilites. However, this is a highly subjective opinion and others will, for sure, disagree.

hardware support does depend on the kernel to a large extend but not exclusively. Comparing distro recognition capabilities does make sense and you should match ditro and hardware to see which workds best.

Don't. At least, not just yet. First, this is way to early for this, second you might have other problems with newer models and, last and but not least, all laptops are overpriced unless you really, REALLY, need the mobility.

I Run DSL on a 450MHz laptop which I carry around. All I need is word processing, web browsing and basic admin capabilities. My big n powerful laptop (which I got for 100 bucks) is a Dell 8200 inspiron with plenty of power. I use it as a mobile/substitute desktop. For any other stuff, Debian on old desktop computers is the most effective way to go.

I have long taken the decision not to EVER spend money on software and not to ever spend more than 100 bucks on hardware. The money I save with this goes to the Free Software Foundation and the Debian Project. I have never been happier with my 'IT budget' since.

This might be somewhat of a harder approach, but you learn plenty and there is nothing my money spending friends can do with their machines which I cannot do (usually better) on mines

I reccommend you try installing Debian Sarge on your laptops. Then see what happens and if you have problems, run 'hwinfo', 'alsaconf' and the other basic hardware detection applications and isolate the issue. Then come back here AND go to www.debianhelp.org and I can promise you that this will be worked out.

Am I making sense here?

Kind regards,

VS

HINT hint from vess - DEBIAN ! - actually I have to look at Debian as well some time :)

<wait> Google-Transmeta Linux issue search in progress >>> :)

"The heart of Crusoe is what Transmeta calls code morphing, a technology that carries out certain chip-level instructions with software rather than hardware components. Transmeta claims that this unusual architecture makes its chips cheaper--they're not as complex, and require fewer transistors than Intel's Pentium family--and easier to develop and improve on. It's comparatively easy to fine-tune Crusoe's software layer, rather than redesigning the chip and having to produce new chips. "Our technology is fundamentally different (from Intel's)," says Ed McKernan, Transmeta's director of marketing.

To duplicate the functionality of Intel's Pentium chips, Crusoe's software emulates the x86 instruction set that drives the Windows and Linux operating systems. But emulation traditionally hurts performance, running programs slower than a chip that natively executes instructions. The ace up Transmeta's sleeve is dynamic optimization, a system that allows the chip to reprogram itself on the fly to deliver optimal performance. In theory, Transmeta's code-morphing technology could meet or even exceed the performance of Intel chips, because of the tangled legacy of the x86 instruction set."

( http://www.computeruser.com/articles...1,0201,01.html )

Linux on Sony Transmeta Laptop review : http://www-jcsu.jesus.cam.ac.uk/~mma29/c1/#cpu

Gentoo on 800MHz "Lifebook" : http://www.geocities.com/robm351/lifebook/

So Debian seems to be the easiest answer here :)

Wini -g you are so freakin' awesome!! Thank You. I can only work on this at work since I do not have net at home and since I am working I have very limited windows of opertunity. I am still searching on how to deal with services and process's and have not even got to the transmeta search yet. You saved me a ton. Thanks!!!

I knew it! I thought I was loosing my mind but I new it had to be something with the transmeta! Now I wonder if there is a patch possibly to bridge that code translation gap a little better, or if it is a 'as is' situation.

Vees,
I will be taking your instructions to heart, trust me on this.

ONE THING THOUGH.
This is a small almost frivolous thing I admit however it drives me nuts. When I load debian it will only give me a vid max res of 800. So, as a test, I loaded ubuntu last night since it is debian based and it gave me 1024. I am trying ot find the way I can tell what it is using for a driver. I would assume (dangeous thing) that sarge would have all that ubuntu had so it would load my vid. BTW it is a SiS vid system on the laptop.
It is just that GIANT icons and windows are frustrating.

THANKS!!!

Vees and wini -g,
I wanted ot personaly thank you for your help in all this. Well now I know what the issue hase been all along. I now need to get debian going.
I was wondering if you could give me some pointers on two things?

One: Getting the wireless recognised and working in sarge.

Two: Building a kernal optimised for a transmeta cpu The transmeta translates instructions to the x86 form factor which is what is killing my performance. One of the links mini -g posted said to recomile using a specific package for the kernal. What I need is to compile a kernal with all that I need for this model laptop.
OOpps... Three things. The third being the vid issue mentioned before.

i know the 2.4 kernel has transmeta crusoe as a cpu type option... i'm sure 2.6 has something like that, or better... is that what you need?? from my 2.4's menuconfig (section "processor type and family"):

Win32sux,
I have a kernal page in the control panel on KDS in sarge debian but it says sorry it wasn't configured. How do I get this option setup and will allow me to select the transmeta type?

Otherwise the hard way; are there any plain english how to's on putting a kernal together?

But I am glad to here that 2.4 and 2.6 have the support. That brightens the horizon. I will check out doc on linux.org se what I find.

Thanks,

this is the one i used the first time i compiled the kernel:

http://www.digitalhermit.com/linux/K...ild-HOWTO.html

Very cool. Thanks. I printed a copy to take home. But first I will try to slim the services down to learn that then I will takele the kernal issue.

When compiling a kernal is it enough for the laptop to have a transmeta gigapro, 384 ram?
Will this have the ability to compile?

Any pointers on setting up a wireless nic in sarge?

Actually - a lousy resolution is not something frivolous at all. And the Debian-Sarge installer is still very 'green' in this respect. I had exactly the same problem so I took the easy way out: using Kanotix or Ubuntu live-CD simply copy the XFree86conf4 file (or whatever the correct name is - I am not at my Debian machine) and edit the resolution section of the corresponding file in Debian (do NOT copy it all since there are some other things - such as mice - which might be an issue).

Then simply reboot into Debian.

Careful as Kanotix already uses Xorg and Debian-Sarge not. But the config file is still compatible.

BTW - I got the best results (by far!) with Ubuntu's config file...

Am I making sense here?

If not - tell me whether you have Ubunutu or Kanotix and post the Xfree86.conf-4 file (or whatever its called) here and then post your Debian-Sarge Xfree86.conf-4 file (or whatever its called) also and I will tell you exactly what to edit. Heck - I will even do it for you (this is really a no brainer).

Stay in touch!

VS

Your definition of "old" is quite different from mine.

I have run SuSE on MANY MANY laptops. I have a HP Omnibook Pentium ! 133 Mhz with 28 Mb ram which is still running SuSE 7.3 Pro, and has been for literally years. The screen fell off, but that's no problem.

I'd recommend SuSE, just because I've put it on many laptops, currently have it on four including one that functions as a "portable" development server, and have never had a problem.

All of the systems (with the exception of my AMD 64) are archaic (between 133 and 300 Mhz with under 128Mb ram).

I got an old 1ghz, 128mb Ram, 20gb HDD Thinkpad to run PC Linux OS, its mandriva based and has a nice control centre, comes with 1 disc of good selection mainly home / office software and has a livecd function

Try it!

I got an old 1ghz, 128mb Ram, 20gb HDD Thinkpad

That's not old!!

Look at jantman running 133 Mhz with 28 Mb ram - that is remarkable, in particular the 28MB of RAM which is unbelivable, but then it is probably 128 :-)

I did not think that SuSE could run at all, nevermind decently, on a 133 box.

jantman must be very, very good at optimizing his machine and making good choices. Congrats!

might be 32MB with 4MB shared video... :)