The old laptop predicament.

AF · Post by AF » 15 Apr 2007, 17:12

Ok, before you read any of this lt me stress: Ubuntu is NOT the answer, its a tried and tested means of not getting where I want.

I have a laptop. Its nice a quaint, its got a 450Mhz celeron cpu, a 6GB 2.5" HD, and a floppy drive. It has a 2MB ATI gpu too, 128MB SD RAM, and usb 1.0 support. It does not have a CD drive. I do have a usb caddy that can hold its hardrive though.

The issue? Operating systems.

I ahve tried ubuntu, it works to an extent but package managers enver load, nor does Open Office, they start loading and the hardrive starts showign activity and it enver changes, 2 horus later same thing, HD activity, 100% cpu no visible change.

My usb wifi dongle didnt work either, it was terrible. It does work though. I'm using iy with Vista atm on my uber rig desktop, and it used to work in the laptop running Damn small linux, but that was a knoppix like solution that wasnt ideal at all, and wasnt persistent. DSL wouldnt let me install to the HD either.

I havent had much luck with windows either, but before I return to the MS Operating systems I'd like to give the alternatives a go.

So what are the alternatives? Ubuntu and Knoppix based distros are a nogo.

Relative · Post by **Relative** » 15 Apr 2007, 17:30

I have a few options:

Xubuntu? I know you said no ubuntu, but xubuntu (XFCE environment instead of Gnome or KDE) is designed to work better with older hardware due to less resource demands.

http://www.xubuntu.org/

This site has a list of laptops and their compatibility with various distros, you might find your own model there:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/

You could keep trying the liveCDs of major distros:

http://distrowatch.com/

Many wireless cards don't work due to poor support from manufacturers. There is a program that gets by this by creating a wrapper around the windows drivers so they work in a Linux environment:

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/

Tobi · Post by **Tobi** » 15 Apr 2007, 17:32

You could try XFCE (edit: read: xubuntu

) or any other (ultra) lightweight desktop environment. 128 Mb is far from enough for gnome+oo.o. (I doubt oo.o alone can live in 128Mb actually)

Or try to grab some more ram somewhere, since most probably it was just endlessly swapping stuff while loading oo.o...

AF · Post by AF » 15 Apr 2007, 17:43

I dont think I can, I dont know where to get any, or anyone else who might have some for that laptop.

And ndiswrapper didnt help with the belkin pcmcia wifi card I had (it works in XP on a friend slaptop though).

architeuthis · Post by **architeuthis** » 15 Apr 2007, 21:18

Xubuntu? I know you said no ubuntu, but xubuntu (XFCE environment instead of Gnome or KDE) is designed to work better with older hardware due to less resource demands.

Maybe http://www.fluxbuntu.org (I know you said no Ubuntu) , fluxbuntu is reported to work with just 96 MB RAM and a slower CPU than yours. Fluxbuntu is based on ubuntu with a fluxbox desktop environment (but many things were left out to make it more lightweight). But I'm not sure if you'll be able to run openoffice even on fluxbuntu (abiword should work though, but that's only a word processor).

I dont think I can, I dont know where to get any, or anyone else who might have some for that laptop.

On ebay you can definitely still find sdram, I'm very sure of that. I searched myself for it very recently.

Edit: one remark, fluxbuntu is still alpha. But their beta should be released not long after Ubuntu 7.04 which is out on 19th of april.

Peet · Post by **Peet** » 15 Apr 2007, 23:18

Yeah, I agree that ubuntu can manifest itself as a bloated useless piece of...software.

On an old pentium MMX that I obtained, DSL (a stripped form of knoppix) works quite nicely.

imbaczek · Post by **imbaczek** » 15 Apr 2007, 23:32

+1 for xubuntu, but you may have to install it using the alternate cd.
also +1 for DSL if xubuntu is still too heavy.
a heavily nLite'd and stripped down winxp/2k may be able to do the trick, too. (e.g. sub-100MB iso for 2k is doable, or so I've heard.)

AF · Post by AF » 16 Apr 2007, 00:42

My grandad has a desktop PC with a 230mhz cpu and 128MB SD RAM that runs XP sp2a, and my first PC ran XP well with a 380Mhz amd k6 cpu.

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 16 Apr 2007, 04:13

Pics or it didn't happen. XP is, while less ruinous than Vista, a resource wasting hulk.

CompWiz · Post by **CompWiz** » 16 Apr 2007, 06:11

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

this will run on a 486

Neddie · Post by **Neddie** » 16 Apr 2007, 06:55

Now that I have tested myself.

AF · Post by AF » 16 Apr 2007, 17:32

CompWiz wrote:http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

this will run on a 486

It runs non my laptop but I cant install it and I'm not keen on it because it has no sense of persistence, I dont like the diea fo reconfiguring my laptop from scratch every time I turn it on or waiting 5 minutes for it to redetect my hardware.

CompWiz · Post by **CompWiz** » 16 Apr 2007, 22:42

so install it like knoppix

AF · Post by AF » 16 Apr 2007, 23:09

As I said, tried it, doesnt work, not keen on it, kaput, dont mention it again.

Peet · Post by **Peet** » 16 Apr 2007, 23:53

Ehm? There's an install button ..it doesn't need to be reconfigured each boot :\

AF · Post by AF » 17 Apr 2007, 00:03

P3374H wrote:Ehm? There's an install script that doesnt work for me ..it does need to be reconfigured each boot :\

fixed

AF · Post by AF » 17 Apr 2007, 22:15

I have downloaded xubuntu

yay!

I booted it in my old PC

yay!

I shove my laptop HD in a usb caddy and install to the hd using ym old PC

yay!

I add a new entry to my grub bootfloppy for xubuntu and a second one with partition 1 just incase.

yay!

I boot into grub and select xubuntu, wont boot, returns to grub, I boot into xubuntu 1 (next partition), it boots, and I get a screen that flashes between two images of garbled text and background colours.

*_*

any other ideas?

BrainDamage · Post by **BrainDamage** » 17 Apr 2007, 22:19

probably my opinion is heavily biassed, but have you tried mandriva?

it has a live cd version (ONE) wich is totally free, tried on a laptop & detected everything, if everything works fine, you can chose to install it directly from the live cd

oh btw i've got that running on a P3 550 with 128 mb ram,7 GB HD (OS uses 600 MB), window manager: icewm

be sure to get the version wich includes the proprietary drivers (not free

)

oh, btw the download might be blocked as a new version might be released within few days

AF · Post by AF » 20 Apr 2007, 17:32

Crisis!

I have installed Ubuntu 7.04 on my laptop and intend to then install he XFCE desktop on it thus avoiding the borked Xubuntu syndrome.

However I cannot boot it. I could nto install grub using th CD as it kept wanting to install to ym main PCs HD and nto the laptop HD in the usb caddy so now my grub floppy wont boot my laptop. I need a copy of a working 7.04 grub config file so I can modify my own to work.

LathanStanley · Post by **LathanStanley** » 20 Apr 2007, 17:58

ok, I was thinking on re-building a dos run pc here at my place from a bunch of old scrap parts lying around... and putting one of these 3rd party os's on it.. it was tempting...

but the amount of frustration its causing you, and other ppl I've read about...

has pushed my doubts on it being a good idea..

I dunno.

Spring RTS Engine

The old laptop predicament.

The old laptop predicament.