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-   -   Suitable distro for a 5-6 yr old PC? (https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-distributions-5/suitable-distro-for-a-5-6-yr-old-pc-249072/)

MKS45 10-30-2004 08:08 AM

Suitable distro for a 5-6 yr old PC?
 
OK - it's a Compaq Presario 2292, AMD K6 333MHz, 316Mb RAM, 2 disks - 1 40Gb, 1 4Gb, with Liteon CD-RW

I did install SuSE 9.0, but have found it glacially slow - KDE (3.1) in particular.
Tried to upgrade KDE to 3.3, but 'make install' ultimately hit an "internal compiler error" which has left me disinclined to pursue this any further.

So now I've decided I might as well start again from scratch, with a more appropriate new distro.

Any recommendations?

Greyweather 10-30-2004 08:22 AM

http://www.vectorlinux.com/

twilli227 10-30-2004 10:33 AM

I have an HP Pavilion, 433mhz, 192 ram, 5400rpm hardrives, runing Suse9.1 personal and Slackware10. They both run fine using kde. You could try a smaller wm on your Suse, or try out Slackware.

cyto 11-03-2004 10:17 AM

Try slackware. I love Slackware.:)

drawhla 11-03-2004 10:56 AM

i'm using debian sid in a k6-2 with 192mb ram and its running really fast
I been using slackware before and I also worked well but for some reason debian goes faster
stay away from suse, mdk and fedora, there really heavy on system resources. som will recommend gentoo but it takes an eternity to compile everything, specially on old machines

freeborn 11-03-2004 10:59 AM

my friend uses slackware 9 on his pentium 133mhz.

theYinYeti 11-04-2004 04:19 AM

I'm running Mandrake10.0 just fine and fast with my PII.350/192MB.

Yves.

cyto 11-04-2004 07:18 AM

Slackware rules!!! Got for it.

MKS45 11-06-2004 02:56 PM

thanks for the responses

Since last posting - found the KDE3.3 "make install" was restartable and the install proceedd past the previous point of error. On it churned literally for days - then when it seemed on the verge of completing successfully, fell over with a real fatal error.

Hacked off with that, junked the entire SuSE 9.0 install and (since the CDs were to hand from a recent Linux mag) gave Mandrake 10.1 a whirl. Looks nice - but KDE 3.2 just as slow alas.

Time to check out Slackware methinks - with a peek at VectorLinux too maybe.....

slackMeUp 11-07-2004 12:24 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by cyto
Slackware rules!!! Got for it.
...Masturbation! errr... yah, I mean, Slackware RULES! Here-Here!

cyto 11-08-2004 10:26 AM

u r sick. lol
just jokin

slackMeUp 11-08-2004 09:30 PM

I try...

hehe... had to correct a spelling mistake in that last post now that I looked back on it.

ferrix 11-08-2004 10:09 PM

Vector is really nice, especially in its low-end configuration. I mean, yes it is possible to install KDE or Dropline Gnome, but by then it is as bloated as the next distro... but the default is excellent, with the choice of IceWM, Fluxbox or XFce4 for windows managers. While Slackware could surely be configured the same way, Vector is ready out of the box with nice fonts, themes and GTK2 support. I was especially happy to find its default mail program was Sylpheed-Claws which has good support for IMAP unlike standard Sylpheed... It also comes with Java and Flash installed out of the box. There is emelfm2 and Rox for file management. The only curious choice is Mozilla rather than Firefox. But overall, with Vector you get great, lightweight yet suprisingly useable environment without having to mess around too much. Recommended!

cyto 11-09-2004 03:05 AM

Vote for slackware 10.0. lol :)

MKS45 11-20-2004 02:02 PM

Well I went for Slackware 10.0 in the end. Took a couple of goes to get it right, but got there eventually :)

Still finding my way around - buit my impression is that, while performance is a bit snappier than SuSE or Mandrake, it's still on the slow side. KDE 3.2 is nice, but some of the apps can take ages to kick off.
Don't think I can do anything about it - "top" shows the CPU fully engaged - 0.0% idle.

I'm fully UNIX-literate, but wrt Linux I'm something of a relative errrrr...ahem....:newbie:, so I'm a bit confused by this. In the PC's previous incarnation as a Win98 box, there seemed no be no performance issue when starting up GUI apps. Is KDE really that resource-hungry?

slackMeUp 11-20-2004 03:09 PM

yah, it can be. . .

Maybe you should try fluxbox or windowmaker for your desktop?

hari_seldon99 11-20-2004 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by cyto
Slackware rules!!! Got for it.
Lots of slackware supporters here I see.

Sounds good. I myself use Mandrake 10.0.

ferrix 11-20-2004 03:20 PM

I think KDE is always going to be slow on 333Mhz, there is just no way around it no matter what distro you use. But maybe you could improve things a bit by trying prelinking... more info for example here: http://www.crast.us/james/articles/prelink.php
I know prelinking is one of the tricks that Yoper uses to good effect. Unfortunately I don't think Yoper would install on your machine, since it is meant for i686 architecture.

mAineAc 11-20-2004 03:30 PM

Slackware but DO NOT use kde or gnome. Use fluxbox, icewm or fvwm. Anything but one of those two bloated peices of software. No matter what distro you run those will be slow as hell.

WMD 11-20-2004 07:40 PM

Quote:

I think KDE is always going to be slow on 333Mhz,
I've seen KDE 1.1 on 133Mhz run fast. So there. :p

But it's really old. I say, find Slack 8.0, with KDE 2.1. Kind of a middle point.

Or, use 10.0 with XFce. :)

cyto 11-21-2004 03:46 PM

Good choice!!!

theYinYeti 11-22-2004 04:13 AM

IceWM is really good. Try it. If you're Unix litterate, you may also like XFCE.

Yves.

redjokerx 11-22-2004 04:29 AM

I run Slackware 9.1 with KDE 3.2.3 on my Compaq K6-2 400mhz. It gets slow at times (I treat it like I treat my pm1.3ghz laptop), but usually it's OK. If KDE is too slow, go for Window Maker or XFCE, although I didn't get into XFCE that much.


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