Easy to install light weight distro's
 

I am looking for a light-weight Linux distro to install on an aging desktop. I have tried Tiny Core 4.0 but failed to install it to an hard drive. And i also failed to install Austrumi 2.4.0 on an hard drive plus i have no idea how to change the keyboard setup from American to UK. For some reason i can't even get Austrumi 2.4.5 to run as a Live CD? Keeps asking for a username and password? Any help would be really appreciated. Thanks

Hello,

www.distrowatch.com has a bunch of light weight distros on their site, I recommend that you check them out.
As far as Austrumi, did you verify the checksum? I don't think it has a default username and password that you need to use when you run it... Where did you download it from?

Cheers,

Josh

Since Austrumi is based on Slackware type "root" as the user and push ENTER with no password. You should get a text prompt so after login run the command "startx" to get a GUI.

Lightweight Linux distros: Vector, Salix, antiX, Bodhi, ... .
But you can use any mainstream distro with a lightweight desktop environment, like Debian (with XFCE/LXDE or a window manager), Slackware (comes with XFCE and Fluxbox by default), Lubuntu (LXDE)/Xubuntu (XFCE), ... .

We may be able to give better recommendations when you tell us the specs of that machine (and may be what you intend to do with that machine).

Slax, Puppy and 'Damn Small linux' are also generally mentioned as lightweight distributions for older computers.

How much memory is usually the deciding factor on how light of a distro someone needs. How much memory are we talking about.

Slax (last version 2009) and DSL (last version 2008) are both not actively developed at this time, so I wouldn't recommend them currently. While Puppy is a fine distro, I still hesitate to call it lightweight. Yes, it is fast on older machines, but that is because it runs totally from RAM. That means that you actually need more RAM to run it, I would think. I have to investigate that when i have some spare time.

A full hard drive install of puppy is what to use if your low on ram. The major draw back of this is that version upgrades have to be done by a full reinstall of puppy.

I had an old desktop on which the only distribution that would run sensibly was DSL. Regarding slax, a slax-remix version (porteus) with a new kernel is available, but older slax generally works well on older computers. I agree that these may not be best linux distros but are two options available.

You can put the Puppy files in a folder on the hard drive, what's called a "frugal" install, and then if you ever need to completely change out the Pup files, it's super easy. And you can keep your pupsave file with all your personal settings so you don't lose those. I've had 3 different flavors of Puppy all side by side, just in different folders with each one in the boot menu. Right now I have a Lenovo Thinkpad with an i5 processor and 8 GB RAM running Tahrpup_64-bit and it boots and runs like a scalded dog (so to speak!)

off topic just a little, But how do you handle the saveFile and data ie. Downloads movies, source code, etc...

I love FatDog64 (which is a derivative of puppy - 64bit of course ) but to save files and what not the savefile limits one. I ended up using a 32GB Stick and made my saveFile 28GB. so how does one deal with that part of the system having puppy or one of its litter installed direcly on a hard drive pc or laptop?

install axel ~ open a terminal ~ then on the command line copy paste this ~ then hit enter and enjoy

Hi guys...

Were you aware this thread is from 2011? ;)

Regards...

OP your processor may be a little fried or perhaps an error in your ram, it may just be jammed up with dust - it's unusual not to get anything to stick....if by ageing you mean manufactored in the last 5 years this can very much be the case (pun 8), stuff made in the last 5 years doesnt seem to last as long as stuff made 10 years ago...

Also try disconnecting everything and openning the box, stripping the board down to it's bare bones and running an install from there.


i would handle stuff like that by saving to an external hdd

Oh :eek:
well that'd explane the "aging desktop" part of this post ... :D