Linux for older computer

Salty9 · 08-06-2009, 11:16 AM

What flavor of Linux would be best for an older HP Pavilion with 667 megahertz celeron chip and limited memory? This is for a neighbor lady who needs it for internet and limited office tasks.

pljvaldez · 08-06-2009, 11:22 AM

You can go to distrowatch and search the distribution for old computers. But the most popular I would guess are DeLi, SliTaz, and Puppy.

Personally, I like to do a bare bones Debian install and then install a lightweight window manager (LXDE, XFCE, icewm, etc) and lightweight applications.

lazlow · 08-06-2009, 12:57 PM

A lot is going to depend on what you mean by "limit memory". If you mean 512meg, then you can choose virtually any distro. If you mean 64meg then your selection is quite limited. Telling us where you are between those two limits will help us help you to narrow down your choices. If you are on the lower end of the scale be aware that memory is extremely cheap right now, so maxing out what the bios will support is also an option.

markomarko · 08-06-2009, 02:18 PM

i have celeron 533mhz, 196mb ram, and i'm using slackware 12...

frankbell · 08-06-2009, 04:17 PM

I have a IBM PC 300 (one of the original 300 mgH Pentiums) with 192 MB RAM and Slackware 12 runs fine. It's a little slow, but no slower than XP on a Celeron.

It won't play videos because the chip can't handle it, but it will do audio.

jlinkels · 08-06-2009, 07:11 PM

Recently I installed Debian Squeeze on a Celeron 600 / 256 MB RAM. OpenOffice is very acceptable thanks to the faster startup of OO 3.0. VLC plays my movies fine, Flash works. If you prefer KDE you should aim at KDE 3.5.9, not KDE 4 though.

jlinkels