Is there a better choice?

Cyanaether22 · 05-10-2009, 03:11 AM

Hey, I have a Dell Latitude CPi A366XT (ollld laptop - Intel Pentium II @ 366 MHz, 128mb RAM, 4 GB HD.

I currently have Zenwalk installed with the icewm window manager, it's working great, BUT it's a TADDD on the slow side.

Don't get me wrong - I've used distros on this computer that absolutely SUCK - way too slow. Zenwalk runs fast enough that i am not constantly pissed at my computer.

My question: Is there a distro that still has similar functionality to zenwalk (good packaging manager, compilers set up by default, kernel 2.6, comes with decent software like pidgin, office, etc...) that is LIGHTER STILL?

So far, Zenwalk has made so many things just work like magic. I don't really want to leave that, but... for better speeds i just might experiment a bit more.

repo · 05-10-2009, 03:18 AM

You could try DSL or puppy,
Another option is to add some RAM

knudfl · 05-10-2009, 05:20 AM

366 MHz is meant to be slow, add RAM as suggested
by @ repo.

IceVM is one of the less resource hungry, so probably
no improvement changing to something else.
.....

computerophil · 05-10-2009, 05:47 PM

I swear on Puppy! - I only had excellent experience.

Cyanaether22 · 05-10-2009, 11:33 PM

I am planning on adding more RAM, but the maximum supported is 256mb...

I've tried Puppy - it was TERRIBLE! It ran slower than anything else I've tried on this machine - including debian. i have absolutely no idea why this was - i had swap activated and everything... but yeah.

DSL just doesn't have the functionality I need, nor does DSL-N. I tried installing compilers on both - no luck at all, complained about kernel version, and hit a lot of roadblocks that people weren't helping me with so I had to move on.

I have also tried feather - with a similar experience to DSL.

so other than add more ram, is there anything else I can do?

the trooper · 05-11-2009, 02:48 PM

How about VectorLinux.
Never tried it myself but here's a link anyway:

http://vectorlinux.com/

Have a look the light edition.

knudfl · 05-11-2009, 04:54 PM

256 MB is fine for Vector Linux and Zenwalk.

I used that for years, using Slackware 8.1...9.1
on a PII, 400 MHz. ( And that was with KDE 3.x )

linus72 · 05-11-2009, 05:51 PM

I have Slackware 12.2 running on my Toshiba 7000CT 160MB RAM/4GB HD, with xfce and fluxbox.
Most stable system I've ever used.

You might also try Slitaz (30MB) and then you net-install pkgs.

The new DSL= Tinycore-1.4; basically a updated/revamped DSL.