Distro for newbie on old laptop!!
 

Hi, i want to strat using linux, i have Compaq Armada M700 laptop: P3 650 MHz, 128mb RAM, 8 GB hd. AND.. i`m newbie in linux world!! Suggest me some distro!!!

I already tryed DSL, Ubuntu, Puppy, SuSe, Pocketlinux, Vector (absolutly the worst!).
Ubuntu was nice, but very slow, slower whan WindowsXP. Maybe, if it isn`t so hard to install Xfce and not use Gnome, Ubuntu can be faster, or not!?
I tryed to install Xfce (http://os-cillation.de/index.php?id=31&L=5) and in terminal after this step:
# ./xfce4-4.2.1.1-installer.bin
it said that there is an error in checksum, 770967811 is different from 4294267295.

Then, Suse is slow too.DSL is sooo unusual for me (i`m windows user).
Is there some light and user-frendly (i need this!!!) distro?

thank you!

Try Xubuntu. Its Ubuntu based, but uses XFCE instead of GNOME.

type
and then when you start your xserver you can choose xfce

If you have no great success with Xubuntu you might try Zenwalk. It too is xface but based on Slackware.

Why get something 'based' on something else?

Get the original. Get Slackware. You can tell it what not to install, so you end up with a lean mean computating machine. It has XFce, plus a few other wm's. Can choose not to install KDE too.

Check out the Slackware forums here at LQ

So, i yesterday installed Xubuntu!
Looks fine, but it still not so fast (i mean how it can be on that computer), becauce i was using WinXP before and it was a faster! I will search, maybe i can switch something off in Xubuntu.

About Slackware, it is a big distro (3-4 disks), will it go well on that laptop?? And why Slackware is that big, it has got all kind of software or "something" that is very heavy and won`t work fast enough. And what about Mandrina, it also is a big distro.

PS. I have small question, i don`t think i should start a new thread about it.
There are tiny fonts in Firefox, and that was on all distros, that i tryed, also now, in Xubuntu. I tryed to edit fonts in Firefox Preferences, but still the same - too small. Maybe I need to install some fonts or ?!

you asked the wrong question :-), and there is lot of threads about old laptops.
I run mandriva 2006 on a PII 300 MHz laptop, and it is fine, even fast
The key is to install light weight desktop manager.
Mandriva 2006 does offer you 2 or 3, use option install other desktop manager (on top of kde and gnome to install but not to use)

Ask as many people as you want, you will get 10,000 answers

mandriva is newbie friendly and will make your learning curve faster

Biasedly yours

{edit You only need maybe about 5 Gb for mandriva,
you can choose packages one by one if you wish,
to make it smaller. But you can afford 5 Gb on your
laptop and that is the partition for the OS I would
recommand
the advantage of the dvd / 3cds is that most of what you may
need will be there, otherwise you can download via
mirrors package by package later if you need something else
When you start big maybe better.
Look at LQ bookmark and search for rute and linux newbie
admin guide for linux background
Mandy doc:
http://www.mandriva.com/en/community.../documentation
a more up to date version of the doc will be on cd/dvd

Also try mandriva 2005 LE or 2006 free, but do not try
mandy one or 2006 live, it will not work well at all:
your laptop is too old]

You only need disk 1 for a slackware install w/out KDE. Disk 2 is KDE and extras, disks 3&4 are source code (not needed)

Zenwalk (previously known as minislack) is only 420Mb and fits on the full distribution fits on one disk. KDE etc can be downloaded later, if necessary, from the repository.

Zenwalk (full version ~ 420MB iso download) is a complete system : out of the box, you will be able to browse, mail, chat, listen to music, program in C, Perl, Python, Ruby,.. watch videos in various formats, write documents, print, scan, burn CD and DVD, connect your camera and edit your photographs, without adding anything. Coders will like the full set of development libraries and interpreters.

thank you all, i already downloaded Mandriva 3 disks. Planning to try it :)
Yes, Zenwalk, i heard about it, i think i should try it too!!

Maybe someone can say something about...
I have small question, i don`t think i should start a new thread about it, probably it is just small silly thing.
There are tiny fonts in Firefox, and that was on all distros, that i tryed, also now, in Xubuntu. I tryed to edit fonts in Firefox Preferences, but still the same - too small. Maybe I need to install some fonts or ?!

One thing which will make even heavyweight desktop environments like KDE run reasonably well on 128megs of RAM is to turn off font anti-aliasing.

But if you really want speed, I find IceWM to be the best for older slower computers. Beware that it's not nearly as full-featured as a true desktop environment.

speed issue on laptop: as well be sure to check the output of hdparm
mandriva will do quite a lot out of the box, but I cannot
remember if mplayer will do dvd and avi etc out of the box
One dowload away from mplayerhq for the codecs
Also if using mandriva dig into easyurpmi http://easyurpmi.zarb.org/
it is a must to select mirrors where to find extra packages or up to date one
(very handy)

How to increase Firefox font size
 

Increasing Firefox font size can be done through Preferences>Content>Fonts & Colors.

I use Kubuntu. My fonts are
Default font: Blank
Size:16

If you increase them through this you see immediate changes happen.