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Old 05-23-2004, 03:47 PM   #1
smithtodda
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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: 43° 8' N 89° 20' W
Distribution: SUSE primarily, but also Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu, and KNOPPIX.
Posts: 59

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Bare-bones installation for low-end Pentiums, but with a nice GUI/DE


Hello, I'm searching for a very small, lightweight distro to install on older computers. I restage computers for resale in a thrift store. The typical computer donated to us is as follows:

Pentium 200 MHz
16 MB RAM
1.2 GB Hard Drive
CD-ROM
Floppy
15 in. Monitor
On-board video
On-board sound
Modem
NIC (Rarely. Btw, I've no net connection at the store.)

I want to turn around and sell these machines without MS Windows installed (for reasons of licensing, ethics, and aesthetics). However, it seems I'll need a super-lightweight window manager or desktop environment to run on them.

Distros with which I've tried default installations (as in reformat the HD and boot to the distro CD) with no success:
College Linux 2.5 Obi Wan
Debian 3.0r2
Fedora Core 1
FreeBSD 5.2.1
Knoppix 3.3
Mandrake 10 Community
MEPIS 2003-10
Slackware 9.1
SuSE 9.1 Pro (as well as 8.2 Pro)

A distro with which I've had success is Red Hat 6.1, although I'm not altogether happy about the look and feel of the GUI/DE.

Furthermore, I've looked into the following distros, but have concluded that they require more RAM and/or HD space than these machines typically contain:

Damn Small Linux
Munjoy Linux
Tiny Linux
Vector Linux
Xandros

I should also mention that I actually got the Slackware installation (albeit with a bare-bones installation for reasons of HD space) to complete successfully, but it crapped out when it tried to load KDE upon the first post-installation boot/login. Perhaps fluxbox would work on such a minimal system? I don't know. I poked around on the fluxbox site, but couldn't find a listing of the minimum system requirements.

I look forward to any advice/feedback you can provide.

Thank you.

Todd
 
Old 05-23-2004, 09:56 PM   #2
vdogvictor
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Registered: Feb 2004
Distribution: Arch
Posts: 498

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I would say your best bet is to use slackware 9.1 (older if you can get your hands on it) and use the expert install. use XFCE (requires startup-notification from the GNOME category) with the xfm (xfce file manager) in the xap section. Or use the fvwm95 gui if you want a more windows like feel to get peopl to buy it. Two other distros designed specifically for low end hardware are deli linux which I have run on a 486 w/ 16 MB RAM and IceWM with no trouble other than the xserver won't start right always...if you use this distro you may want to sell the computer with a quick instruction sheet with commands like startx, xinit, icewm, alt-ctrl-backspace, useradd user, passwd user, etc...so that people aren't completely lost...you might want to do that with slackware and the next distro I mention too which is Grey Cat Linux 3.x

Grey cat will definently run on all those computers...I have never used it but it seems like a decent distro. DeliLinux is okay. Slackware may be the best because they can get the most help for it. Lol maybe instead of having a help sheet you shoul djust tell them about this website :-P

TurboLinux workstation 6.0 is also a very nice distro...although my monitor didn't agree with it so I didn't use it.

Last edited by vdogvictor; 05-23-2004 at 09:58 PM.
 
Old 06-14-2004, 11:16 PM   #3
smithtodda
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Registered: Sep 2003
Location: 43° 8' N 89° 20' W
Distribution: SUSE primarily, but also Slackware, Fedora, Ubuntu, and KNOPPIX.
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vdogvictor, thanks for your reply. sorry it took me so long to respond. would you believe that less than a week after your reply, someone donated mint condition slackware 3.3 CDs to the store? i couldn't believe my luck. needless to say, i turned right around and installed slackware on those machines, using the v3.3 default of fvwm95 for the window manager. everything went perfectly. thanks for your advice to try an older version of slackware.
 
Old 06-15-2004, 08:24 PM   #4
ghostwalker
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Registered: Jun 2003
Posts: 160

Rep: Reputation: 30
Also look into the earlier version of Vector. 1.+ version. You will need to go to the download site.
 
  


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