Forum Moderators: phranque
133 mhz, 1.0gb hd, 32mb ram...
I only goal is to create a cheap device I can use to write articles/content anywhere which I can transfer (via email or disk) to my main desktop computer for publishing.
I've heard that an old version of linux would run much quicker than a windows os on such an old machine.
I was wondering if anyone could recommend an old version of linux to use for the install, one that uses very little system resources.
your fujitsu was a great deal though, that's less than a simple memory upgrade would cost me for this old laptop.
Plus you can install things like Opera 5, and have a decent browser too, I wouldn't put opera 7 on it.
one thing ms is pretty good at, or used to be, is putting together very efficient os's, both 95 and 98 to a lesser extent were not very demanding.
I've tried various versions of linux on laptops and pc's over the years and never, repeat never, have they run even remotely close to how well windows runs, the old windows that is. Much as I'd like to say otherwise, MS knows how to do this part of making an os.
I still use a 200mghz laptop to do testing and writing on, it runs all the new stuff, w2k, apache/php/mysql, everything, and it works fine, I have linux on it too and it works... well, let's just say linux has a very long way to go in terms of making small, efficient desktops, I wait for the day this will no longer be true.....
I know!
This will hopefully be the end to a long quest to find a article writing machine.
First I bought a $1,000 laptop, but I am WAY to scared to carry that puppies around town everyday.
Then I actually spent $200 on an alphasmart 3000, which is basically a glorified scientific calculator with a full keyboard. Only to have it stolen treking in Spain/Morocoo.
Then I bought a children's "toy" laptop which had a word processor...(I know, I'm pathetic) only to decide it was useless. It was fun for playing hangman on though...
But finally I realized I could just purchase a dirt cheap laptop of ebay and use that!
IT is crazy because what I want is so simple!
1. Cheap enough that I can lose it without having a mental breakdown.
2. Word Processor, Word Count a Bonus
3. Ability to Save Documents
4. Ability to Transfer Documents to my computer
THATS IT!
Sheeesh!
linux is small and portable Os.
You can have a machine that just runs on the command line. Now lots of people shy away from this, saying its out dated etc.. not so true becuse you have all the function of a win os desktop with out the burdern on disk space and proformance. for your editing requremets you could use Emacs or vi perhaps, you can still browse the web in lynx. and bundled with any other software for networking, programming etc. all for about 100mb of disk space. add to that say other 200 maybe 300mb for Xfree86 and a cut down version of kde, gonme and you have a well rounded comp. true the setup up of linux on a laptop is not as easy as it would be on a desktop. but there is a lot of documentaion on this type of config.
but the long config process can be a pro to the overall
performace of your box because you can talor your machine to what you need and strip out elements you don't need. as with windows you'll get the lot and the boulge factor will do nothing than slow you down and eat your battery.
i'll stop ranting now and address you actual question of distros there are meany to chose from and if your looking for pertictauly small distros heres a list
* MEPIS Linux (dosen't even need to be installed)
* Yellow Dog Linux
there are meany meany distros to chose from i recomend you take your time and have a good look
hope some of this helps even if it is a tad late
133 mhz, 1.0gb hd, 32mb ram...
An excellent, powerful little machine - it sounds as if you've got yourself a bargain. I don't agree with much of the above sentiment that you can't run a Linux distro on this kind of kit.
However, you've got to feel a bit comfortable with Linux when installing on older computers. A very interesting distribution I'm going to try out on my old Pentium 166 is Deli Linux [delilinux.berlios.de] - which is designed for machines varying from a 486 to a Pentium 166 - so your laptop is high-end for this, and it should run like a charm. It uses the excellent IceWM Window Manager, which is not the most beautiful, but is wonderfully practical, easy for a person used to Windows, and nice and fast. The package includes a set of useful applications, email, browser, word processing. The distro even includes sqlite, PHP5 and a web server, so you can run your development sites off it!
It's based on Slackware 7.1, so you can get a ton of other packages for it. Personally, I would recommend searching for the "Ted" word processor, and a maybe copy of Netscape 4 Communicator which will do nicely for a browser and email client (if you don't like the ones offered).
runs the same setup i use for all my client machines, stripped down NT4 server enterprise with sp5 in workgroup mode. idles at about 13MB. absolutely rock stable.
it is a duplicate of a desktop i built in 1998 which has been upgraded solely by moving drives to new boxes. in other words, the desktop is so stable and usable that it has not been rebuilt in 6 years.
runs just fine for the usual on the road apps including sniffers. boots slower than desktops because of the slow ide drive, but its acceptable.
btw, win95 only has 14 diskettes when loading from floppy.
regards,
Mark
Only 3 disks.
TJ
DOS would probably do the trick for you too.
Actually, it's not a bad suggestion for word processing only. FreeDOS [freedos.org] running WordPerfect 5.1 (the best WP program and version ever) would be lightening fast. The problem with DOS, though, is the networking, which is clunky and problematic at best.
If you want absolutely to stick to Windows, Win95 is dead and unsupported, so you shouldn't touch it. However, I am currently running the fully-supported Windows NT4 Workstation with Service pack 6a on my 166MHz Pentium. Runs fast, and it is the last Windows version without IE embedded so it's qute secure too. With a copy of, say, Word 6.0 and NN4 Communicator for email, it would be a good choice.
[edited by: trillianjedi at 11:38 am (utc) on Sep. 27, 2004]
[edit reason] Correcting URL [/edit]
I did this for many years - WP 5.1 is indeed an excellent solution, although if all you require is something to write on, without worrying about formatting, you could always just use Edit.
Doom (old skool flava) would run on it too :-)
TJ
When you've dinked around with it for a while, post your experiences here. Would be interesting to hear about dillo. I've become a big fan of a rather obscure desktop manager called pekwm, very straightforward. It's a bit like the fluxbox desktop manager you'll find on Deli, but in my opinion, more logically put together. You will have to change the menu config file, though, to add the paths to your stuff - grab these off the icewm desktop config file. Try icewm for a while - the bottom bar will give it a bit of a windowsey feel for familliarity - and then download and install pekwm and give that a spin.
I just bought a fujistu lifebook 535 for $30 on ebay
Thats a great deal! How are the batteries? I'm sure they're BER by now & you've got to replace them....
BTW, I still churn out my content using my trusty 5 yr old Jornada 720 WinCE clamshell with Pocket Word and it still rocks! Too bad HP didn't develop this sucker further. Would have loved full Windows capability in that form factor. Well, hoping to run one of the Linux distros on it someday....
The reason the laptop was so cheap was that the guy had a BIOS setup password that he forgot. I checked with the manufacturer and there was no backdoor password so I did what any good techy would do, I took out the CMOS chip. :)
1. I currently have windows 95 running on it (my burner broke so that was the only CD I had ready).
2. The battery holds about 50 to 90 minutes ofpower when I am running windows 95. However I have hibernated the machine for 6 hours and still not lost any significant charge.
Ok another question:
If I used DOS and WordPerfect, would that increase my battery life?
Thanks All!
If I could get 3 hours life on it that would be great. Do you think I could get that? Would I get more with dos?
I believe that you can see the amperage rating of the battery, the higher it is, theoretically the longer it will last, so double check the actual numbers before buying.
I have an antique high end laptop, lithium ion battery, still holds the charge perfectly, very old, very slow, but runs office 97 on windows 95 quite well, that's with I think 8mB, or 16mB, can't remember. Opera also runs fine on windows 95, Opera 6 especially.
I disagree with the posters that say don't use windows 95 because it's not supported, you don't need a 'supported' OS, you just need an os that will run your wordprocessing.
There were some pretty interesting suggestions in this thread though, different paths that all sound pretty good.
But keep in mind the fundamental requirement that Windows 95 was released under: must run on 4mB ram, that was a very efficient OS, whether or not you like windows.
That said, you can run linux with or without X and there are any number of window managers available which are geared towards the conservation of system resources, I am not framiliar with any of these to the point I would want to recommend them but they certainly do exist, most prominently to work in enviornments similar to that provided by your laptop (and for those who like to do less with better hardware), and in some cases are used quite a bit.
As far as distributions that come with alternative WM's I think Debian and Gentoo would make good choices (the installation of the latter however would be UGLY without involving a second machine - as it compiles from scratch)
I'm posting this using Dillo on DeLi Linux now. It's extremely fast (this is a high-end machine for this kind of distro), and although I've never used Slackware before, it seems pretty straightforward. The only minor problems is that I accidentally set the default language as Spanish, and that I can't get my regular user account to su to root yet.
IceWM is fast and almost pretty - I just can't cope with the Fluxfox-type nested menu window managers (I'm an XFCE user myself). The whole system is a bit short of software, but there are old Slackware packages available for some things, otherwise it's a quick configure, make, make install. Just make sure you install the development packages like gcc.
Overall impression: very impressive. Just right for older machines: fast, simple and stable.
