I am recieving an old laptop from someone and they said it could be 5 years old so it might be older. I have fedora core 2 and 5 and I was wondering what was best to put on it. What do you think? I might know more in a couple of days if I get it.

What do you think?
I think you'd want to test a distro Live CD or two. See what runs and what not.
In any case you don't want FC2 because it's EOL'ed.

EOL'ed? what does that mean?

The only live cd I have is Ubuntu 6.06 and it will only work if the laptop has 256mb of ram.

WEll I was thinking an older distro because I don't know how much ram the old laptop is going to have, but if it has enough for 5 I will use 5. If it doesn't I have to use an older or different distro.

Consider that FC2 is no longer supported and not updated, you would be much better off with FC5 if not FC6.

I run Gentoo with a 2.6.15 kernel on a Compaq Evo N400c (2001) running a PIII 700MHz with 192MB ram.
It blazes ... even running KDE.

You might find that precompiled distributions such as Fedora Core may run slower. Make sure you turn off all the services that they enable by default (that you do not need).

Originally posted by dxqcanada:
I agree entirely and would like to add that there are many distros that will let you install a slimmed down system with a lightweight DE and just the software you need. Such a system will run well on an older computer.

Gentoo is certainly a valid choice, but in my experience an old laptop will struggle with the need to compile everything from source (takes ages). I have run Slackware on an old IBM Thinkpad and think this would be a better choice, or consider Debian (both give installation options to make them very light).

Well, that sucks finding out that the people that robbed my house also took a cd case containing at least fedora 5 in it (also FreeBSD) and not sure what else.

The OSes that I have right now are: Vector Linux 3.2, Fedora Core 2, Debian 3.0r0, Mandrake Linux 10 (not going to use it), Ubuntu 6.06 and Kubuntu 6.06, and windows 2000 professional.

I don't know how to get any OS because as of right now my computer doesn't have a cd burner. How can I get any OS?

I was considering Gentoo but the compile time might be slow, yet won't be bad once I have the stuff on there.

I haven't used slackware, but I figure I would need to learn a few things.

I have Debian but an older version.

I was just thinking of Fedora because I ihave used Red hat on an older machine before.

The main questionfor right now is: How can I obtain a copy of the distros you've mentioned?

I was thinking if possible I could get a net install if I can unless I can get a disto another way (through a floppy and then net install?)


I think all I would want on it would be a lightweight DE or KDE or Gnome if I can get one of them on there.

I mainly use firefox, openoffice, msn messenger, yahoo messenger, aim, mspaint for now, I want to learn programming languages when I get linux as well, a photo editing program, and I want to play little fun games.

The laptop I am getting the OS broke on it.

I will probably find out more about the laptop tomorrow if I recieve it. If I need to post this into another forum let me know.

Originally posted by GuySkarpz:
You can buy an ISO from a dealer such as http://www.cheapbytes.com/ or do a netinstall from floppy; instructions for Debian are at http://www.debian.org/distrib/floppyinst

Hope this helps

@Guyskarpz : what is ur laptop brandname?

come here http://www.linux-on-laptops.com
there is many kind of laptop and Linux Distro inside
hope that you could find out what is need for ur laptop.


peace

I normally would recommend Slackware for something that runs great on older hardware, but since you don't want to learn it, maybe consider PCLinuxOS. It's a pretty fast little distribution in my experience, and you won't have to learn much, as it's somewhat known for working "out-of-the-box." If you can't burn CDs, you can order a PCLinuxOS install disc for $4.99 at the website.

It looks like .92 and .93a are the only options for ordering, but the newest release, PCLinuxOS 2007 (the official name for .94) is due out any time, so if you want to check this distribution out, it may not be a bad idea to wait until 2007 is final.

I never said I didn't want to learn it. I said I would have to learn a few things.

thanks for the recommendation though. I was thinking of something easier fist and then using a harder distro later.

I don't know when the person will give me the laptop but when I know I will know the details.

I am going to look into that floppy install as well.

Sorry about that, I guess I did interpret it wrong

If you are willing to learn Slackware, that's great. It's not as hard as its made out to be, you just have to be willing to read some things at http://www.slackbook.org/ to get started, but its not a bad idea at all to start with an easier distribution and work your way into it.

Thanks for all the help. When i need more answers i will submit another question.

You've all been helpful!