Which Distro for slow comp?
 

Hey hows it goin guys n gals, this is my first post

Linux is great i gotta admit

I have a P2 333 server machine. I want to use this to learn linux, and how to be productive and such. However, i don't want to install it on my 2 ghz Athlon Xp machine cuz i dont' want to deal with the complications if any were to arise.

What distro do you recommend? i've tried Redhat 8.0 and it was slow as hell.. Almost too slow to really enjoy linux and i reallllly want to learn it. I hope to use only linux by the end of the year if it's possible.

heres exact system specs

Pentium 2 333mhz
128 mb SDram
10 gig hdd
sound blaster sound
TNT/2 Graphics

Thanks!

Any x-windows manager (KDE, Gnome) will be downright slow on that machine, but just about any CLI (command-line) will be fine. I happen to prefer Slackware 9.0, but that's pretty heavy for a first time linux user (unless you really want to learn linux!). Most of the distros would be okay, though many people recommend Mandrake. If you want to try a GUI, I'd say go with something lighter, such as Blackbox or whatnot. Do a little searching around these forums and you'll find lots of options

You should install blackbox or something like that as you window manager. I recommend not using a GUI at all...thrown in more ram wouldnt hurt either.
good luck

Hmm i suppose your right. Im not sure what i should try now =( i was looking forward to using Red Hat

redhat should be fine as long as you dont use desktops like kde or gnome..they need more memory and will slow your machine

Wait, memory or CPU power? because ic an get some more memory, maybe like 384 Sd ram?

I would recommend upgrading memory no matter what. Especially if you can get it up to 384. That will make a big difference and is always a good idea. Secondly, I'm running Debian 3.0 on my PII 233 and am having no problems with speed when running KDE (at least it's faster than the Win98 OS on the same computer). Debian shouldn't be any harder to work with than RedHat, as long as you read up on it, and you'll learn more about Linux. I think it will be faster than RedHat or Mandrake also, but I don't know for sure...

-rikkulinux

does Debian come with KDE or do i have to install it seperatele?

If this is the case, i may need some help

slackware is a good choice for learning and for your hardware.

Yes, Debian comes with KDE. If you download Debian 3.0rl CDs from linuxiso.org (CDs 1,6,7 should be enough) you can install from those. Once you get Debian installed, 'apt-get install kdebase and kdm and synaptic also, then install the rest of the KDE packages using synaptic. That a two sentence Debian install walkthrough, you should look for a good one if you think the install with be tough. The Very Verbose Debian Walkthrough is very good, but I don't have the link off-hand.

-rikkulinux

So all i need is CD's 1/6/7 right? I'll start downloading those tonight, Thanks for the awesome support!

Maybe i'll try slackware too, does that come with a gui?

thanks again

slackware comes with everything you would probably need on 1 cd but you can download more if you want heh
and yes it comes with your choice of guis

so the first CD comes with KDE/Gnome?

ubers0ldat,

it seems that we're on the same case (ok, yours is better).
I have:
P 133Mhz
32 ram (16 edo & 16 fast dram)
13 gb
no soundcard
no accelerated graph ....

and using Slackware 8.1 with Blackbox as a GUI and it works fine (loads faster than the xp AMD athlon 800Mhz with 320MB ram :)) )
... but you can't (well you can, but it takes about 20 sec. to run and it works damn slow even on local files) use Mozilla or Opera. Instead find a smaller (faster that is) software (for browsing I use Dillo (http://www.dillo.org/) ... well it doesn't support css yet but it loads under a second).

What I was trying to say is, that, if you have a weaker machine, you must be more aware of what software (additional) are you installing .. and that's all


Enjoy

P.S. But, if you want to have the machine for server only, (IMHO) there's nothing like the old good console ;)

Yep - KDE, Gnome, windowmaker, xfce, fvwm, twm - and then I added fluxbox from the extras directory.

That's a great way to put it, actually. You just have to realize that there are deffinate alternatives to the "standard" programs and applications.

Poetics

yup, that's poetry to my ears :)

Actually, as I figured it out (please correct me if i'm wrong) the main power isn't in the machine, it's in the software that you're are using and in the way that you're using it.

Enjoy

Precicely. It's a matter of knowing how you want to use your system and knowing what tools are best suited. You wouldn't run advanced rendering software on a P1 any more than you would run Windows 1 (yes, such a thing exists) on your brand new Athlon 2000+. The more you know about your needs and your options, the better suited you'll be to do anything you want

DELI Linux

www.distrowatch.com

Haha.. thanks for the great advice. Well, i got slackware running, and like i said, i've used linux before, but not thoroughly. How do i start my GUI?

Meaning, im at the console, and i don't knwo what to do from here, i want to load up a window manager maybe?

Thanks.

Well, if you've got X then you should have chosen a default window manager. So you can try 'startx'. If things go haywire, you can try 'xf86config' or whathaveyou. And if you want to switch window managers, do 'xwmconfig'.

Or you can just do a lot of cd'ing and ls'ing or fire up mc and play around in console for awhile just to see what's going on under the hood. :) 'Course, you can do that in an xterm, too.

Well, im using KDE 3 on Slackware 9.0 right now. Im pretty impressed, it runs faster than the KDE on redhat. It seems reasonable, i'll check out those other environments later

Right now, i want to activate Apache/PHP and MYSql.

Can anyone redirect to some assistance? I think they're all already installed. I just need to know how to configure them, or turn em on or whatever

Thanks again.

UBer

Welcome to Slackware.

As for apache try browsing to http://127.0.0.1:80/
I can't remember but it may already be set up on install, that is if you installed apache.

Not real familiar with MYSql

good luck to you and happy slacking

Ports and localhost should already be defined. There should be no need for all the numbering other than it's good to learn ;) A browsing to:
http://localhost
should reveal the same as the above. 127.0.0.1 should be defined in /etc/hosts already as 'localhost' and port 80 is the standard http port and if Apache is the default setup, then it's on the standard port ;)

Again, that is if it's installed.

MySQL actually is VERY learnable straight from the docs at www.mysql.com You should use examples like it uses, but customize them to your own needs. That way you can see parallels to what they are trying to do and your situation.

HTH

Cool

Well.. Okay. Like most of you have already realized by now, I grew up using DOS/windows so im used to the answers jus given to me. Lol

But, im going to try to seriously embrace myself in this vast Linux world of massive Docs and Manuals. .LOL

So heres whats gonna happen, ima read these docs. and Learn!

Again, thanks again guys. Stay tuned in case i have further question. I appreciate everything!

=Uber

MasterC is completely right about the addressing I just like to get people familiar with the ports they are using and the :80 is a conscious reminder. Comes from having taught a lot of classes I guess, heh.

Good luck to you.

Okay, for those who have been keeping up.

Im trying to setup a Apache/PHP/MySql linux server. Im having some difficulty however getting the hang of Linux.

Some things may be obvious to others, but not to me

1) How the hell do people understand MAN pages? What are they and what do they mean? i've read a few. And they offer no help whatsover to me (a linux newbie). Can someone tell me how to interpret these things?

2) Once i install a program, where does it go? How do i run it?

3) How do i create a new, non-root user account?

Again, thanks for helpin out a linux newbie.

=Uber

2) just type the program name at the CLI. Such as "nethack" runs the nethack game, if you have it installed. If that doesn't work, you either need to "cd" into the direcotry it's installed into and run it from there, or add the directory to your path ;)

3) "adduser" (and make sure to set their password)

1) (saving the hardest for last) the man pages are quite a bit to go through, I deffinately admit that. There are various places online where you can browse them, which is nice because they print out very easily for easy reference later (you don't have to drop what you're doing or switch to another console to read the page, meaning). Don't look just at the man pages but also online (or just search these forums for the command name), and you'll find a wealth of information

Adding to Poetics - Man pages are essentially for people who already know what they're doing but may have forgotten whether the options they want are '-qr4stzpf' or -qr4sTzpf'. *g* That said, they're still very useful, mostly for simple (or not so simple) utilities. Full-fledged applications usually come with some kind of documentation on a website, in the source directory, or in /usr/doc that is often a better place to start.

It also depends on the man page author - some are incoherently cryptic and some are a breeze.

For finding stuff, there's

which - searches path only
whereis - which will find your man pages and source, too
find - searches the whole drive, which can be kinda slow
and my favorite:
locate - which searches a database of the whole drive and is a lot faster but needs to updated as root and often needs to be piped through less because it can return a lot of stuff. All have as the simplest syntax: 'command file'

Quick answer - it usually goes in /usr/bin or /usr/X11R6/bin or /bin. Sometimes the various sbins. Sometimes somewhere utterly weird. *g*

blackbox is very fast, but lacks keybd support. if you lose mouse support, then you'll either go for the restart , or on/ off button (i know i did). seen a bunch of people rave about fluxbox, which is based on blackbox, w/ icons, and keybd support.

perhaps try vector linux, as it's based on slackware, and they strive to keep it small and quick.

btw, you'll probably install, and reinstall a bunch of times, and probably try a bunch of different distros as well. i think the partitioning, and mount point aspect of the installs is the hurdle to get over. best to know the system hardware well, just to be certain that auto detection is making the correct choices.

Blackbox has bbkeys.

Thats Great advice, i've tried Blackbox, and it runs pretty well on my machine.

Right now however, im setting it up so it runs strictly from the console. That way, i can just FTP to the folder where my website is located from my Windows XP machine, which is what i use for most my graphics and coding and stuff..

Im just having some trouble setting up Mysql. I dont' know what it is about me, i jus have a hard time reading those docs and man pages.. I've tried, but im still workin on it. If you have some experience with Mysql, please let me know

Thanks

more like bbkeys exists and needs to be added on to black box (or bbkeys took over the aspect of keybd support, when blackbox dropped the key combination commands?). go for ctrl + alt + del, or any kde, or gnome key combination w/ the stock black box included w/ mandrake 9.0, and it's like wtf, nothings working!?!?! i probably could have saved the system as i was using ext3 (journalized), but decided that i'd reinstall it anyway.

but yes, bbkeys is an add on for black box- thanks for the reminder!

some of the guys at this site suggested rox- filer as well for black box (icons).
i need to give fluxbox a try one of these days, just to see what it's about.

*g* Yeah, I didn't put that right. Does seem like it could be part of the package.

I haven't tried rox - looked at the site and it seemed kind of weird to me but it might be cool. I did switch from blackbox to flux - I like it.

ubers0ldat - You're probably talking to len but, while I don't know anything about mySQL, there's a manual.html in its /usr/doc section that I think is the same as the website's. I want to figure out mySQL one of these days but that looks like a *major* effort and I need to do other stuff first. Still, that might be the place to start. I don't know about that manual, because it's huge, but some stuff you might want to print out. Or maybe there's a mySQL book available. I have an easier time with in-depth efforts at learning by reading out of books, while I do better with online stuff for just quick or small pieces. Get the overviews in print and the details on screen.

Oh, and there is what looked like a great thread around here about setting it up. Maybe search 'setup mySQL step' because there's something about a 'step-by-step' to the thread, I think.

Quick question, Slackware supposedly came with Apache, but did it come with PHP? I started apache, and made a quick PHP file and named it .php

Inside i did the phpinfo(); function along with all the necessary tags and such.

HOwever, apache is only displaying this code, it is not processing it. DOes this mean PHP didn't come with my Apache? Or do i have to compile it myself ? (OH hell.)

Thanks

ubers0ldat,

Slackware comes with both, Apache and PHP. Find it under /slackware/d packages on the cd.

Enjoy

well.. I chose the option of instaling Apache, my question was weather or not PHP was installed along with it, see, im a newb and installign PHP would probably be extremely difficult.

look in the package manager if you see php listed then it's installed if not the install the package

you have to tell me where the package manager is =)

Under what GUI is that under? Any way i can see if it's installed from the console? I installed it last night (supposedly) But im not sure how to, configure it i guess you can say.

If this is the case, how do i un-install Apache/PHP/MYsql, so i can use one of those All-in-one packages, taht will install and configure Apache w/ PHP and Mysql along with PHP myadmin or some other management tool

Any other ideas?

Thanks a bunch

installed packages should be shown in

/var/log/packages/

one package manager is in kde in the main menu -> System -> KPackage

Okay.. i Dont know what i Did, but PHP works now =)

I had a few more questions. Im trying to connect to my Mysql Server.

Now, i didn't install it. Slackware installed it for me i guess. Now, what is my password?

It's not the root password because i've tried that:

Heres my command:

mysql -u root -p
Enter Password: [rootpassword]