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Old 09-13-2005, 07:17 PM   #1
NetSurfer
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Wich Linux For Old Laptop


Hello,
i have an old toshiba 110cs (laptop without cd drive) and i want to know wich OS is better to this laptop.

right now i have windows 3.11, but i want better than that.
please help me.

NetSurfer
 
Old 09-13-2005, 07:37 PM   #2
wanderingmind
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It would help if you would say the specs - Processor Mhz, Hard disk space etc.
Also, do you want something easy or are you ready to configure stuff?

For really old hardware, I think I would try first Damn Small Linux or BeatriX, but that's just my uninformed quess.
 
Old 09-13-2005, 08:01 PM   #3
cuiq
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You could also try mulinux http://mulinux.sunsite.dk/ which can be installed from floppies if you don't have a cd-rom drive and the hardware requirements are really, really low. However as wanderingmind says, it depends on your laptop specs as far as which distro you can use.


peace V

Last edited by cuiq; 09-13-2005 at 08:04 PM.
 
Old 09-13-2005, 10:41 PM   #4
colinstu
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I've seen that people have divided up puppylinux and wrote it to floppys. I like DSL 5.0 (D*mn small linux) but I don't think you can do it w/ DSL.
 
Old 09-13-2005, 10:52 PM   #5
craigevil
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Slackware and Debian can both be installed via floppy.

Puppy, Feather and Slax will run on a low resource system.

Whichever you end up choosing make sure you use a low resource window manager like Fluxbox, blackbox or IceWM.
 
Old 09-14-2005, 12:59 AM   #6
jayakrishnan
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Any distro will do, u just need to be carefull with what u choose during installation, i have installed RH 7.1 on intel 486 with 16 MB RAM
 
Old 09-14-2005, 05:23 AM   #7
LinuxSeeker
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You can also use any distro you like with an older version of KDE or Gnome...
 
Old 09-15-2005, 04:24 AM   #8
NetSurfer
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Toshiba Satellite 110CS

Intel Pentium 100MHz
40Mb Ram
772Mb HD

I prefer an OS easy to install and easy to use.
 
Old 09-15-2005, 06:56 AM   #9
theYinYeti
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I don't have the answer, but here are some tips:

It will have to install from floppy, so it should be a floppy-based distribution.
However, for any chance of really using it, you'll have to be able to update from the net. So it will have to rely if possible on known packages, such as .deb (Debian), .rpm (Fed/Mdv), or .tgz (Slack).

With this in mind, you can parse the numerous directories of floppy-based distro that you'll find with Google.

For your information, Damn Small Linux (CD unfortunately, based on Debian) takes about 300MB on my laptop, Firefox included. Debian takes about 800 but could be brought to 500MB or even less, without any loss of functionality.
In my opinion, you won't get anything better than Debian for a current distribution.

But an older distribution could do, provided all you need is inside: you won't find any update or programs on Internet for older distributions. Don't think you'll compile anything from source: you won't. With such a hardware, it is unbearable...

40MB of RAM is a strength: for such hardware, it is a lot (I have 32 in mine).

Contrary to what has been said, don't use Gnome 1 or KDE 1:
- I doubt you'll find either in current available distros.
- I doubt it will run nicely.
- It will take space on disk that could be better used.
I suggest you use IceWM instead: it is the lightest you'll get without switching to a geek-only window manager (and yes: it is lighter than fluxbox); Matchbox is also an option but its installation and configuration is a bit more involved.

Good luck.

Yves.
 
Old 03-08-2006, 02:11 PM   #10
foxmuldar
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Hello, i have a laptop. Gateway 2150 solo, 450 Mghz, 160 mrgs of ram, 7 gig HD, will fedora 4 work on it?
 
Old 03-20-2006, 04:54 AM   #11
theYinYeti
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I can't be sure, but for comparison, I have been using Mandrake/Mandriva on my PentiumII 350 with 192MB RAM and a 8GB hard drive without problems.

Yves.
 
  


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