Linux on a Small Machine?

Help with issues of speed and memory

[Nick_W]

Hi all,

I've just taken Win98 off of an 32MB RAM machine with a 3GB HD. Win ran reasonably fast but when I put RH8 on it, it was dog slow, practically useless in fact.

So, why is this, and how can I tailor RH to run optimally on this glorified calculator?

I know I need more RAM, however, this is what I have to work with and I can't change it :(

Many thanks for any insight!

Nick

[ncsuk]

RH8 is very heavy on graphics performance. Most likely if you installed RH5 and used Ghome and not KDE then your machine would run like a dream.

Its the graphics that are mainly the problem although depending on what you installed the machine as you may have a lot of programs running in the background...

What install type did you do? and what size is your swap partition?

[Nick_W]

I did an auto partition and I de-selected about 500MB of programs from the list to be installed...

Nick

[4eyes]

FWIW

I just had a similar problem

One of my friends had a 32meg Pentium 200, on which some idiot had installed Windows XP. It was, of course unusable.

I put in an extra 16meg (hey - it was all I could find on the spur of the moment), and installed Mandrake 9.1 with ICEWm as the front end.

I got a phone call from her yesterday enthusing about her new system that was working so well. She only needs to use the machine for Internet and light word processing, and it works well enough, although a little slow compared to a 'real' machine.

Point is, she is in heaven and loves me (well, that was the purpose of the exercise;))

In an ideal world, I would have installed somthing a little 'lighter' than Manderake - but it was all I had lying around.

[Nick_W]

Yes, this is for Ivana who only needs it to word proccess....

Is there an ibetter distro or (my preffered option), some stuff I can do to lighten the load?

Nick

[ncsuk]

Did you install KDE?

[4eyes]

I only really know Mandrake, which isn't really 'light', but if you don't use KDE and go for XFCE or ICEwm it should speed things up somewhat.

Is this [tiny.seul.org] any good for you?

If not, I am sure one the real Linux experts will proffer some low spec alternatives pretty soon

[ncsuk]

[debian.org...]

I would try Debian, just make sure you dont make your graphics too hot and use Gnome not KDE if oyu have a low spec machine.

[4eyes]

Try Knoppix - as it boots from a CD and is based on Debian, it should let you play around to see if it works before doing a major install.

[dingman]

Another Debian suggestion here. Either it's easier to fine-tune or I'm just biased from having used it as my primary distro for six years. The first machine I installed it on was a p166mmx with 32mb of RAM and a 2.5Gb hard drive, which came with Win95. My first two impressions of Linux as a desktop were (1) damn, but this is fast and (2) hey, it's been on for a week and it hasn't crashed!. I therefore submit that it *must* be possible to set up such a machine to still be usable.

IIRC, I was using the Fvwm2 window manager, NN4.x for mail and browsing (Hey, it sucks, but I honestly hate IE4 more.), and the Applix office suite. Now, I might use Blackbox instead of Fvwm2, and I'm not sure what I'd do for a light-weight browser. Dillo has potential, but I haven't used it enough yet to be sure, and the slowest machine I've ever tried Mozilla on was a PII-233. Maybe Konqueror would provide a decently modern lightweight browser? As for word processing, I know I eventually switched to StarOffice 4 on that machine, but I don't know if you'd be able to use a current version of the suite on such a low-spec box.

Littleman?

[Nick_W]

Thanks for all the suggestions and advice guys. I've been out for a few hours but am back on the case!

I'll be in touch...... ;)

Nick

[littleman]

I think you could get by with Mandrake, but you are going to have to tweak it some. Get into the Madrake operations manager (I can't remember the name, but it is part of Drakeconfig) and shut down all the processes that you don't need.

Otherwise I would recommend Debian. Knoppix will default to KDE, but you can test it out with other window managers by pressing F2 and selecting others to try out.

If you want light weight performance I would run from KDE, and also avoid Gnome proper. There are some really good light weight window managers. 4eyes recommended ICEwm, that's a good one. You may also want to look at FluxBox [fluxbox.org] -- it takes a little bit of getting use to, but it is light, very responsive, and the most *use efficient* window manager IMO. I've been using it for three years now. I've tried most of them, but keep coming back.

For email: Sylpheed
For word processing:
Use Abiword, it's the most function for it's size.
If you want something really light and fast look at FLWRITER [oksid.ch]

For Browsers:
It's sort of complicated. Basically, I would use two, or maybe three. Dillo is fast and small , faster than any gui browser out there, but it lacks a lot of features. If you could get it compiled, I would use Links Hacked [xray.sai.msu.ru], in it's place most of the time. You may also want to look at gLinks proper [atrey.karlin.mff.cuni.cz].

Also, you will need a big and slow Gecko based browser, you just can't get by on the web without a full feature browser sometimes. So go grab Firebird.

GUI Text editor: Nedit

[Nick_W]

Great, thanks littleman!

> I would recommend Debian

Yes, I downloaded it last night and will attempt an install today. I also really like the look of Tiny but I need to go buy some floppies, it requires 12 of them!

>abiword

I actually got that running on redhat/gnome and it looks fantastic, the only thing Ivana mentioned was that she couldn't have a word processor without a 'footnotes' feature, and she couldn't find one?

>desktops
I'll have a look at all the ones you mentioned, I remember 'backbox' being quite good too but am keen to use what is available on the Debian cd.......

Great thread guys, thanks much for the excellent and educational advice!

Nick

[ncsuk]

*Sniff I mentioned Debian first and you gave littleman the credit :(

*snif snif snif*

[Nick_W]

hehehe, sorry!

I always planned to try it. I've installed it successfully on another very ancient box without too much fuss. thanks! ;)

Nick