Linux What OS for old laptop?

ubuntu-eee.org

best for low end laptops, nice gui

 

Hey guys, apologies for the necro-thread but didn't see the point in starting a new one.

Ive now been happily running xubuntu for a few weeks (the original drive i used as a replacement died good and proper and i had to get a new one) however it appears to struggle with videos online (youtube, iplayer, etc). im sure that when it had xp installed on it they used to work fine my guess is that i possibly need a video driver, the only trouble is that i cant find one.

Anyone know where to find a linux driver for an ati mobility m?

 

Don't think it's a problem with the video driver, I'd update flashplayer if I were you

 

Hmmmm, i'll give that a go. It could just be that the machine's not up to running them and im looking to the past with rose tinted specs

 

I have had no problem with the ATI mobility in linux. I run slackware, just installed from the binary, enabled PCI_MSI in my Kernel and off I went.

 

You could try downloading a normal resolution non-Flash file to check and see what happens, but I reckon it's Flash bogging the CPU down.

I hate flash

 

What about drivers? I have the same issue, whereby I wish to install an OS on an old laptop, however the problem comes when I wish to use my wireless usb internet adapter, problem being I cant find any drivers. Can anybody recommend one that will work with xubuntu?

 

U- Lite, Imo.

It runs LXDE, which is great for slow systems.

 

Try slax, its KDE based but runs damn fast off a kingston data traveler.

 

Slax, DSL (Damn Small Linux) or OpenSUSE.
DSL is probably your best bet, considering it will run off of a CD/USB Flash drive and uses very little ram. OpenSUSE is probably the most secure, as its built off of Novell..

I would try those before trying anything Ubuntu-related....

 

After changing my hdd my machine sped up a bit so i thought i would try ubuntu again, as it was a bit sluggish on the old 4200rpm drive. It's still alot slower than xubuntu.

As a complete linux noob I would heartily recomend xubuntu as a lightweight user friendly OS for an aging notebook

 

did you run xubuntus tool to check for restricted drivers? its under system>administration. also, do desktop effects work for you? if they work, you already have a good video driver. if they don't, look harder.

i know on my laptop (intel graphics) everthing just started working right away, but on my desktop i have to download the nvidia restricted drivers before i can watch any video at higher than 3fps.

 

850MHz CPU and compositing? Ha, good one

 

oh yeah...

 

What about the Google OS? so long as you have internet access this Os should meet all your needs with regards to what you want to do. You don't even need to download any software, documents can be created using Google docs, which is very friendly on your resources.

 

gOS is nice, but is it licensed under Googles TOS? If so, I would NOT get it. Google is one of the companies where if the Feeb (Feds) come talk to them, warrant or not, theyll hand over all your docs and then some and its all legal cause its in their TOS.

Personally, I would look at Slax. I tried out Backtrack 3 tonight, and its great, only running 92MB RAM of 2GB RAM total. That was on the Live CD mind you. Much smaller than Ubuntu's footprint...

 

The eee pc 70x has a MUCH better chipset, as well as 512mb of RAM.....

 

What about the MSI Wind? They have i think a 1 Gb Ram Model with the dual-core atom? I might be mistaken, but its worth a look

 

Google OS - 64bit

Google OS is for 64bit systems. Most of the old machines are 32bit, so unfortunately it rules out the Google OS.