Linux Low spec laptop and linux

Hey guys, I am quite new to using linux, well using it on a system of my own, I use it a little at university for programming a motorola microcontroller and have played around with Knoppix a little from time to time.
I have managed to get hold of a fairly low spec laptop with the aim of running linux on it so I can get a feel of how everything works and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice on what version of linux would best suit the specs of this laptop.

The specs are:
Celeron 400
64Mb RAM
5Gb (I think, may be around 4Gb) HDD

I would like the option to use it with a wi-fi card at some point but have not got as far as buying yet.

I have Red Hat 9, Mandrake (not sure what version, fairly new though) and Gentoo V2004.2 downloaded.

Ordinarily I would not be asking this sort of thing but with the specs of the laptop, mainly the low memory, I thought it might be best to get a bit of advice first.

Many thanks in advance.

 

if you really want to get a feel for linux then theres nothing better than gentoo
there are some downsides to gentoo like for instance it takes forever to install with a slow connection (been there done that about 5 times)
it can be a real pain in the ass to get working but it is great when it does
you shouldnt have any problems adding a wifi card later

 

Debian is another good one, especially for older hardware, should run happily with yuor 64MB. I fear Red Hat and Mandrake wont be happy with less than 128MB.

 

My suggestion would be gentoo or debian. Mandrake and Redhat are sluggish on low memory. What were you planning on doing with the laptop? With those specs, I'm not sure it will run anything in X that well, especially if you use KDE or Gnome. Possible that it will run X alright using something lightweight like Fluxbox or a similar light window manager...

 

Gentoo! are you mad! It takes my PC 12 hrs to compile O let alone a Celeron 400. you could try Ubuntu but Debian is also a good choice.

 

I'm a fedora FC3 guy here..

With that little ram though, you'll be struggling to run X.

FC3 comes with XFCE which is a desktop for lower end systems.. Takes some getting used to but I had it running on a 300mhz machine with 128mb of ram before..

 

ubuntu is based on debian isnt it?
fluxbox is nice and takes less to run then xfce

 

Thanks for the advice guys, I have tried putting red hat 9 on it and although the installation went very smoothly there is a problem with it running and I suspect that the lack of decent hardware specs may be to blame.

I really need something that I can install fairly easily as I am not a big code monkey (although I am not aversed to typing stuff in if needed hehe). Like I said at the start I have played around with Knoppix a fair bit and I do quite like the look and feel of that, doesn't run too smoothly on this laptop due to needing to use the swapfile pretty much all the time.

/*edit*/

Just looking through all the disk images that are around for debian and I am getting a bit confused as to what I will need to run something with a semi decent GUI (well as decent as I will be able to manage anyway). There are about 7 discs availiable with different 'flavours', I have read up on what each version contains but still not much the wiser.

thanks again

 

With Debian, each disc has less and less important/popular packages, so you generally need only the first three or four discs. As for flavours; Stable is (obviously) stable, but has old packages, Testing, is a little less than stable, but rarely has problems, it has a lot of newer packages, and finally Unstable is unstable, some packages may break and have bugs, but you get the benefit of bleeding edge software.

I would reccomend you give Ubuntu or Mepis a try. They are both based on Debian with a few tools to make life easier, in particular a nice installer.

 

I have got Mandrake 9.2 on it now and it seems to be running just fine, setup went really smoothly. I am going to keep it on for a while and see how things go with it. If things start to run slow or I have problems with it then I will try again with something a bit slimmer.

From just seeing these few posts I have so much to learn but I guess that is what happens when anyone can write for it.

Thanks a load guys, you have been a lot of help

 

Which desktop did you wind up using with Mandrake? (KDE, Gnome, etc)

 

Using Gnome at the moment, just trying to install a few other bits a pieces now, getting there

 

On the point of the wifi card I believe Branded ones .e.g cisco are meant to be best to use and not the cheapest ones of ebuyer

I know a man that knows stuff he might give you some hints as he has done the same.

 

I suggest a Cisco 350 Series PCMCIA card for the wireless as it is well supported under all the newer 2.4 kernels and all 2.6 kernels.

As for the distro I'd suggest sticking with a lighter weight desktop environment like fluxbox or XFCE - XFCE being my preffered one. I use Slackware but Gentoo would be just as good if your willing to get your hands dirty and avoid the bloat that you get with most other distros.

My advice is from personal experience as I've used done the wireless thing and the slow machine (though mine was a desktop) thing a few times.

Jon

 

Not really had much time to do anything with what I have yet (maths exam at uni tomorrow ) so I have not found any problems with my install so far.

Been looking at a lot of bits and pieces as and when I can about different distros and stuff and although it is very tempting to go for one which involves not a huge amount more than put the disc in and boot from it then follow the 'next' boxes, plus having only ever installed windows on machines, albeit many many times, the typing in of seemingly obscure codes to set partition sizes and types before I even think about getting the rest of the install underway is more than a little daunting.

Having said all that, being an engineer, I have always thought the best way to learn is to actually do something for yourself and work out how to fix any mistakes that I make as I find them, so a more hands on way of setting things up would probably suit me better in the long run.

From the bits and pieces I have read on the slackware site there seems to be a good mix of both manual configuration and automated installing (please correct me if I am wrong here) plus with the reccomendation from someone who has dealt with the low powered install. I tried using Gentoo but the guide I was following, and doing quite well with I might add, always kept on trying to point me towards downloading stuff as I was going along, with this laptop that is not an option at all as it doesn't have an ethernet socket for me to connect my adsl modem to (it has a dial up modem on board but I have no dial up account any more).

I know I don't seem to be concentrating on using what I install much here but I figure I have to get it on there before I can do anything with it hehe

 

*cough*emerge openoffice-bin*cough*

That's why binaries of the biggest packages exist

Sam

 

If you want to learn how to configure a slick Linux distro without the faffing around that is Gentoo I heartily suggest Slackware. Ubuntu and Debian are alternatives but I know nothing about either, only that I have heard good murmurs about Ubuntu.

You will not need network access to install it but I don't see why you'd want to install an operating system on a machine that can't connect teh great intarwerb!

Jon

 

Oh I fully intend to connect to the net sooner or later, just couldn't afford a network card when I got the laptop (cheap *** student loans ).

The Slackware install discs are on thier merry little way as I type this so as soon as I get a bit of time spare I will give it a whirl. Do you know of an easy to follow install guide anywhere around i should take a look at?

 

Inspired by this thread i've just finished installing Ubuntu "Warty" on an old Gericom T3. This laptop has a 900mhz Celeron with 120mb ram and seems to be coping admirably.

Thanks for giving this machine a new lease of life (although i now need to learn how to use it!)

 

I can strongly recommend fluxbox as an excellent lightweight window manager. I use it on my 1.3Ghz Centrino laptop, purely because I don't need the bells and whistles of KDE, but still get a very nice looking desktop.

Might be worth a try to squeeze those last few MB out of the old girl!