[SOLVED] Best Distro for Dell Dimension 2400

Madra Rua · 06-29-2010, 10:43 AM

Hi,

I have an old Dell Dimension 2400 running Windows XP.
I want to dual boot a Linux Distro on this PC.
It has a Celeron Processor (2.60Ghz, 400 fsb. 256 cache)
Hard Drive is 40GB IDE
Installed Ram is 256Mb (Though I am in the process of maxing this to 2Gb).
I have 10 GB Free space.
I want to run a Linux Distro on this space.
Can you help me with some recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

jefro · 06-29-2010, 03:34 PM

I guess that is after they got rid of the rambus memory. If you could up the ram to 1G that would be great. Almost any disto at distrowatch would run on it. It would be a bit slowish but not that bad. Consider trying the lighter window managers or distro's that claim speed or light window manager or such.

It is a good box to play with I'd think. Might have to play with a few items but all in all a good starting point. The 256 ram is kind of too low for most right now. There are plenty that can run on that but it limits your choices.

You may have to watch out on the 10 gig free too. You need to have 30% free for xp usually.

You can also consider booting to usb flash drives if that year supported it. My wife had an older 2400 but it didn't boot to usb. There are ways to boot to floppy or cd and then use usb flash or usb hard drive too.

snowpine · 06-29-2010, 03:36 PM

The best distro depends on your needs.

Here is a good description of the major distros: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

A lot of people choose Ubuntu as their first distro, not a bad choice in my opinion.

SalmonEater · 06-29-2010, 10:06 PM

I'm running an old AcerPower F2 with 2.4GHz P4 , 512MB PC2700 RAM and an IDE 80GB HDD as I reply now! Linux distro I'm using is antiX-M8.5-i686. I load all such P3 and P4 machines that only support 512MB RAM with antiX; those machines with more RAM and decent speed I load with LinuxMint-9-LXDE or Salix 13.1 32-bit (it uses the XFCE interface). Mint-9-LXDE would be my suggestion.

Best wises and Happy Independence Day (from Windows, that is)!

Madra Rua · 06-30-2010, 08:33 PM

Hi,

Many thanks to you all for your supportive suggestions! To be honest I had never encountered the LXDE format.

As jefro mentioned there is a problem in that this Dell Dimension does not boot from USB. I can save backup and save to USB though.
I am upping the RAM to give greater options.

I have created a partition of 10 GB for the new Distro.

As I only have 40GB in total It is all I can give at the moment. I use the XP machine as a backup for writing but mainly for using Quark Xpress.

If I could find a good but inexpensive alternative to Xpress or an easy way to load Quark Xpress to my new PC (The Quark is an old version loaded from 1.44Mb HD Microdiscs and I am reluctant to say good bye to it. It cost a lot and has served me well!) then I would give all 40 Gb to Linux and use Scribus with Open Office.

However that's another story for another forum on another day.

Once again thanks to you for all your help. I look forward to continuing co-operation in the coming years, decades, centuries....

Mile buiochas!

hkothari · 06-30-2010, 10:08 PM

Try Slackware with XFCE or Fluxbox, really quick and light distro, runs well on old hardware.

sumeet inani · 06-30-2010, 10:17 PM

jefro

is there a way to boot from USB when my computer BIOS is before year 2000.
No option of booting from USB in it.
It also does not have cd rom or floppy drive.
Can I do something so that it loads usb driver from hard disk then boots from USB ?
Currently I have ubuntu 8.04 on my hard drive.
Actually sometimes I like to run ubuntu afresh like a live cd & USB stick is a nice option.

i have tried vmware but my system spec is 284MB ram, 1GH processor so too much trouble for already running OS.

lrfocke · 07-01-2010, 12:36 AM

sumeet inani,

Yes you can create a boot cd that will then point to your usb drive. Here is the URL for instructions:

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/category/usb-boot-cds/

Hope this helps.
lrfocke

jefro · 07-01-2010, 02:48 PM

"if that year supported it." I meant to be full bios however...

Two ways to boot to a usb device. One is with full bios support. About that time systems began to offer some options. Not all were common such as usb-zip or usb-floppy.

The other way it to use a floppy to "teach" the computer enough to then boot from a usb attached external drive. Many distros either offer a floppy and or a cd to do just that. One could actually make a floppy for many other distros if one wanted.

As above tools such as grub4dos and other ways can also indirectly boot to a usb device.

See WakePup create boot floppy for puppy linux.

One a side note.

See also network boot floppies for fun. netboot.me and bko are neat and can be used as tools to even make your own local lan boot.

Knoppix terminal server is about the most simple pxe boot way known.

sumeet inani · 07-01-2010, 09:55 PM

I read http://blog.brothersoft.com/2008/12/...ed-using-plop/ which shows booting from USB when there is no cdrom,floppy.
But the problem is I did not find plpgenbtldr.exe in plpbt-5.0.10.zip

Okay
i found the plpgenbtldr-0.7.zip at http://www.plop.at/en/bootmanagerdl.html

I will try that

sumeet inani · 07-05-2010, 05:32 AM

I did & it worked partly i.e I can select plop boot manager when my XP boots then i select USB with a live USB stick ((verified on another computer whose BIOS supports USB boot)) only inserted in available ports on my PC.I get message

Code:

loading ehci driver
searching on hosts
host1
driver removed
loading uhci driver
searching on hosts
host1

then system hangs up.
What should i do ?
I want to boot USB from hard disk without using cdrom or floppy on my computer manufactured 10 years ago so no question of BIOS knowing USB.

jefro · 07-05-2010, 03:04 PM

No not really. If the system has a USB then it can be made to boot.

As I stated above you may need to do a few things. You may need to create a special usb device for that system. Some may need to look like a usb-zip or usb-floppy to boot.

What the problem may be is you are using modern tools. Puppy linux is popular because it has both isolinux and syslinux boot images. Not all computers support both. I forget which one is for older systems.

Try the wakepup. Start with distros that are made for older systems.

sumeet inani · 07-06-2010, 03:52 AM

I had ubuntu 8.04-live on USB stick.Also tried tiny core.

Wakepup (http://puppylinux.org/wikka/WakePUP) says it is utility to create floppy to boot from USB or cdrom.
My computer has neither floppy nor cd/dvd drive.

Can you tell me distro which you have successfully booted using plop.

sumeet inani · 07-14-2010, 06:32 AM

started a new thread about my USB booting via GRUB (http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ort-it-819890/).
My query in regard to plop boot manager follows.

jefro · 07-14-2010, 06:33 PM

Actually how about you start a new post please. It will help us.