What version to use on a IBM Think Pad

mattman13 · 11-25-2003, 03:24 PM

Hi,
I have an old IBM Think Pad 755CD, I believe it is a 486 133mhz, and I would like have any suggestions on what version of linux I could install on it.
It would be just for playing around on, nothing too intenstive of course.

Thanks,
Matt

Tinkster · 11-25-2003, 03:42 PM

The question is not as much which distro you're
installing, but rather which features you want to
use ... that said, you should (being new to Linux?)
probably go with something that does a lean default
install, such as Slack or Vector. (Mandrake and
RedHat fire up HEAPS of things by default, and
memory usage (CPU isn't that bad in itself) and the
consequent swapping would bring the machine to
a crawl ...)
If you decide to go with Slack, choose an older
version rather than a new one. And if you install
X11, try to get a late 3.x one rather than 4.x, and
use a small windowmanager (ice, xwm, fluxbox, ...)
rather than the chubby DE's Gnome or KDE.

Cheers,
Tink

Poprocks · 11-26-2003, 07:50 AM

Hmm... I'd personally recommend Red Hat 6.2 if you're new to linux and a little afraid of installation.

I'd recommend doing a custom install _and_ doing customized package selection and choosing a window manager (or a few) instead of a desktop environment as your main means of use. I would recommend AnotherLevel (looks a lot like Windows 95), WindowMaker (very clean and easy-to-use desktop) or Enlightenment (extremely sleek and good looking, but _may_ be a little slow). However, I would also recommend installing GNOME or KDE if you have the space, simply because they are both very intuitive and complete GUIs. And since these versions are older (1.1 and 1.0 respectively) they shouldn't be too memory-intensive.

The reason I'm recommending Red Hat 6.2 is because it is the last Red Hat to use XFree86 3.x -- however, it is only one suggestion. Vector Linux, Slackware, and Debian (my personal 2nd-choice) are also _great_ distributions that can be tailored (with a little more work than RH6.2) to run blazingly fast on your 486.

Hope that helps ... !

mattman13 · 11-27-2003, 10:35 AM

Thanks for all of the suggestions!
I am going to try Vectorlinux first, installing it on a Compaq 1235 I have first. It is currently running Fedora 1, it is too slow for it.
With the 755cd, I am going to have to figure out floppy/CD-Rom swapping... what a pain. But it will be fun in a strange sadistic way...

Matt