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Best linux distro for low-end machines?

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kent_b29

Member
Joined
Aug 27, 2002
Location
Minnesota
Hi,
Me and my friend are setting up a non-profit in the area to get people's old comps and getting them ready by mix-matching parts and whatnot to give to low income families. So were gonna be putting some version of linux on these computers, they just need the basic things, word processor, internet, instant messenger(gaim), maybe a few little games(card, asteriods, whatever those little built in things), that sorta stuff. So what linux distrobution would be the best to put on these machines? Remember the main thing we want is preformance, because these will be like PII or so machines mostly. Also needs to be easy to install and configure.

I did try out Morphix(a knoppix based thing) with it's light GUI, and KDE versions, but ran into some problems with like setting up internet and that sorta stuff. Does anyone have any suggestions for any alternative linux distro's?

thanks,
Kent
 
Well distro dosnt matter as much as window manager. Window manager is what is usualy the recource hog and all. A low end system will just take long to install on but you wotn mind that anyway cause once its installed u have a non-hog window manager it would be fine.

For a window manager i would ster clear of KDE and Gnome. Those are the two biggest ones and definatly wotn run very smoothly. I would reccomend some very low end window manager that dosnt need many recources like Ice Box or something.
 
so mandrake 9.1 with a lightweight windows manager would work good? i'll check that out, thanks,

Kent
 
Define "low-end."
If these are P90s with 32 MB RAM, there's going to be almost nothing that will work acceptably. If it's something closer to 1 gHz and 128MB RAM, it should handle whatever you throw at it somewhat gracefully. At any rate, I'm partial to windowmaker, although you'll want to test out anything lighter than KDE to see how intuitive it is to the people who'll be using it. People can get used to waiting for their computer to get started, but if they can't easily figure out how to use it (and if it doesn't work when they turn it on), the computer will collect dust.

For the distro, gentoo is a bad idea. It's a great distro for tweakers and people who don't mind messing around with their boxes before they'll work correctly, but for the aforementioned reason, it won't do these people much good. Also, installation time depends greatly on the host computer, which isn't good if you've got slower boxes.
Debian will always be my choice for computers too slow for Gentoo. The package management system makes software installation a breeze, and once you've got the system set up, maintenance consists of apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade -y and the occasional answering of config questions. It also installs much less bloat than newbie distros like Mandrake and Redhat. It can be a little unfriendly to setup for a newbie, but there's very little required maintenance once it's installed. If you go with Debian, make sure to install the GUI frontend for apt-get (Synaptic) too.

Finally, you should set up a web page that shows people how to get around in whatever windowmanager you choose. Then set the browser (Firebird, I hope ;)) with that as the home page. If you don't have any server space, you could make the page local easily enough.

Once you get one computer set-up, just copy partitions between HDDs to make your life a little simpler and to ensure uniform results.

Good luck.
 
Blackbox and a bloated Mandrake 8.1 worked okay on my p133 with 48 megs of ram, I think if you run a bare debian or gentoo you could get some more performance. I've never used Gentoo but I hear it gives you options for compiling the kernel. That might be good for a couple of computers a week, although debian is quick and easy for more computers. Debian also has 10 years under their belt of working the bugs out.
 
Well, obviously don't give them a straight gentoo install, set it up to have everything installed and accessable from the WM and hae it automatically boot itno X, basically set it up to be easy to use. Same thing with Debian.
 
Yeah guys, everything will be set up so they just need to double-click this icon for inernet, this one for gaim, etc. They won't have to do any configuraion or anything.

Ok so my buddy i guess did try debian, but had to update for hours during the install, and couldn't find out how to get into a GUI environment. So what would work well there? Does Icewm come with debian?

thanks,
Kent
 
yeah all of the "standard" WM's use x-server


which you start by typing "startx"

also if you want to start kde you can type

"startkde"

you could also start gdm/ kdm
 
kent_b29 said:
Yeah guys, everything will be set up so they just need to double-click this icon for inernet, this one for gaim, etc. They won't have to do any configuraion or anything.

Ok so my buddy i guess did try debian, but had to update for hours during the install, and couldn't find out how to get into a GUI environment. So what would work well there? Does Icewm come with debian?

thanks,
Kent

Nothing "comes with" Debian. That's one of the best things about it, but it's also a pain if you don't know about it. Assuming that apt is all properly configured, all you need to do to install a windowmanager is type apt-get install wmaker (or do apt-cache search XX|less to find packages with XX in their description). Once you've got that installed and got XF86 configured, make a file in a user's home dir called .xinitrc with the name of the executable of your windowmanager. Then startx will do what you expect it to.

BTW, the lazy way to configure XF86 is to boot from a Knoppix CD and copy the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 that it comes up with. It usually comes up with near-optimal settings that require little or no tweaking.
 
kent_b29 said:
Ok, so what are some linux distro's with icewm as a window manager?

Kent

Libranet 2.7 Debian (free now :D) defaults to IceWM unless you change it. It also has KDE & GNOME as well as other more light weight WMs. Uses GRUB too.

Christoph said:
BTW, the lazy way to configure XF86 is to boot from a Knoppix CD and copy the /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 that it comes up with. It usually comes up with near-optimal settings that require little or no tweaking.

Yeah, that's how I set up a lot of config files in Libranet. Knoppix also make a perfect rescue CD for most OSes except ones on NTFS partitons. When Linux can reliably write to NTFS partitions, it will pwn all others.
 
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Audioaficionado said:
Yeah, that's how I set up a lot of config files in Libranet. Knoppix also make a perfect rescue CD for most OSes except ones on NTFS partitons. When Linux can reliably write to NTFS partitions, it will pwn all others.

Wrong. When Linux can reliably write the NTFS partitions M$ will come up with something even more diffucult to reverse-engineer and will make it the standard. ;)
 
Christoph said:


Wrong. When Linux can reliably write the NTFS partitions M$ will come up with something even more diffucult to reverse-engineer and will make it the standard. ;)

When Longhorn makes it to market on a new FS, Linux will still pwn because it won't have all that Palladium Technology to muck it up.
 
Audioaficionado said:


When Longhorn makes it to market on a new FS, Linux will still pwn because it won't have all that Palladium Technology to muck it up.

Windows will just use a modified version of the linux kernel(because linux will use NTFS better) that is still open source but when compiled will not work with any linux software, and must be compiled with commercial libs or a commercial compiler that they develop and they charge for each use.:D
 
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