On my Asus EEE Pc 2g Surf and Raspberry Pi B+, the GUI is really slow, and RAM usage can push me into running off of swap.

I wouldn't expect to run any distribution of Linux on hardware that old and still be expect to use java script in a web browser. I suggest Slackware 14.1 with Fluxbox (or Blackbox) as your window manager.

Someone suggested installing an alternate web browser, like Midori. It might be a better idea to configure links (links can be recompiled to launch a GUI in X) or w3m (w3m can be found on Slackbuilds.org) to display images. Then you can skip java script all together; but I think w3m has /some/ java script support. Links web browser comes on Slackware compiled with --without-x. Whatever the inverse is to that configure time switch will allow you to run links in the frame buffer. (in X in it's own window)

Use mutt email client and abook (address book) instead of Thunderbird or KMail. A good password manager is "pass" (found on slackbuilds.org) instead of keepass. etc etc.

Just look for console based alternatives to your usual GUI applications to save on RAM usage. Many of these applications can provide features you wouldn't expect if you recompile them or configure them appropriately.

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In case you have trouble with running os on your computer, I suggest antiX:
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
I have run it on my older hardware and it was a joy. Other os options are good too, I just wanted to add antiX to the suggestions
Good luck and have fun.

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I have Slackware 14.0 installed on a Pentium III running at 448 MHz, with less than 400 MB RAM. Fluxbox is perfect there, and I can tell you that the machine performs quite decently, as long as you don't have too many heavy programs running at the same time (you don't want to swap too many data to disk). However, if you undo some of the habits which have been encouraged by more recent and powerful systems, I believe that your machine will be fine for the needs you have listed.

Running a full KDE will not be a good idea, in my opinion. On the other hand, according to my experience it is possible to use KDE programs successfully from other window managers: Konqueror, KWrite and others will run nicely from Fluxbox or Xfce as well. Besides, I would use xdm instead of kdm, if you don't want to startx the GUI from runlevel 3. Depending on the graphics card you have, and how it is supported, the CPU might get busy when there's some graphics acceleration to do, thus slowing down the system.

Depending on the quality of your Internet connection, you might want to download the ISO image for CD 1 only, install a basic system with networking from there, update it, then get the rest of the system, already updated, from a Slackware mirror.

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On a Lenovo T400, I'm running Slackware 14.2 32-bit with JWM (Joe's Window Manager). RAM use is only around 108 MB with wifi up. JWM is not included, but very easily compiled from source or built with slackbuilds.

Once away from KDE/Gnome, i found the XFCE4, while quite more comfortable than fluxbox, really is worth the extra burden:
-proper sys-tray,
-proper task-bar,
-quite decent work environment (half sized windows, roll to switch, custom lauchers, icons or not, styles)
-multi language support for input and keyboard
-menu that "just works", even the late whisker menu - not for the lowest tier machines tho.
-decent integration of non XFCE apps

I did try run fluxbox instead, just to discover the resources freed aren't worth the extra mileage needed to replace the "spoils"of XFCE

on an sub ~700MHz Celeron 512 MB RAM machine booted from SD-card (Class 8), and many many faster ones later...

It really surpasses the even lighter LXDE in both footprint but also in accessibility IMHO.


My order of preference:

1. XFCE
2. LXDE
3. fluxbox (can regenerate the apps menu)
4. blackbox
5. bare X & app in root window

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