Most lightweight distro?

Hi, I'm going to inherit my grandparents old desktop in another year(less) & want a distro(the lightest one possible) that can run on he following specs:
AMD Semprom 1.8GHz
192MB DDR RAM
SiS 740 IGP

Thanks!
-Thomas

 

Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux are a couple that spring to mind...

 

I've thought of those, but I need more.........

 

I remember a student in a linux class I helped to teach found a lightweight version of ubuntu he put on an old windows 98/2k laptop. GL

 

Is it Xubuntu? I was going to try that.......

 

Arch Linux. Xubuntu also comes to mind.

 

Xubuntu, Arch , gOS

 

DSL (Damn Small Linux) is the tiniest, non ?

 

+1 for Arch.

 

there is fluxbuntu (don't use the graphical installer) or you can install xubuntu and, if it is still too slow, install fluxbox or ICE instead of xfce.

Wolvix, Zenwalk and Vector are good slackware based xfce distros. I even think Wolvix offers a flux or Ice option. But I have less experience with slackware...just enough to know that it is faster than 'buntu.

 

Zenwalk also uses the XFCE desktop and I've heard that its pretty fast.

 

antix is a fluxboxed version of Mepis that is very popular

Dream Linux installs with xfce too

 

Hmm, what about PUD Linux? It uses LXDE, & looks good.

 

Burn the image to cd and check it out!

 

thats really not that bad, you can run ubuntu but i would go with xubuntu for speed

 

You can go hardcore and install Gentoo, its almost like Arch but harder to install

Otherwise, I'd go Xubuntu if you don't want to take to long installing.

 

You forgot the part where 90 % of Gentoo software installation is done by compiling, where as in Arch you have the choice to go either way.

Also the newest release of Gentoo is still not as hardware friendly as Arch is, Gentoo wiki is also pretty messed up.

 

This may be one of those things that if it works for you, it works. For me Gentoo works.

That's correct. If someone wanted a binary version of Gentoo they should try Sabayon, or something like BinToo.
BTW, nowadays with the latest CPUs, compiling most everything except OpenOffice, (which is one of the packages you can choose to install from source or binary in Gentoo), doesn't take too much time.

This is highly dependent on what is meant by "hardware friendly". For example, Gentoo, when you have it properly installed, has some of the best overall hardware support of any Linux distribution. It not only can be installed on Intel, but also PPC, as well as a bunch of other platforms like Playstation, etc. The problem with Gentoo hardware support is that the install CDs can go a while without adding crucial installation related support like updated network drivers. This has forced me in the past to have to bootstrap an installation to get the right network drivers installed, so I could continue the installation on the target machine. It's frustrating, but like I said, once you're installed, you can usually find everything you need, either in Gentoo's "repository" Portage, or in an alternate repository, which are called overlays. It's also really easy to make your own local overlay for installing stuff directly from release websites.

Having said all of that, I would agree with other forum posts, that you need to invest time in reading and learning to understand Gentoo. It's not for novices who want to quickly install either a full, or lightweight, Linux installation. There are other, much better distros for that. Gentoo does have its quirks, but once you've invested the time, it's one of the most flexible Linux distributions, so the work is worth it. For example once you were familiar with installing, configuring and running, Gentoo, you could probably build a very lightweight Linux install using Gentoo, and do it very quickly. The caveat is that just like with hardware support, it depends on what the OP means by lightweight. BTW, there's good information on the subject of small Linux distros in general, at least here, and here.

FWIW, I've only ever used Gentoo, and on a mix of 10 different laptops and desktops. I tried Ubuntu once, but ended up going back to Gentoo, because of its flexibility. The biggest benefit from using Gentoo, is that I've been able to learn a lot about the internals of Linux, and I think if I had to switch I would probably go towards another source based distro, like Linux from Scratch. Finally, it's true that last December the Gentoo Wiki database server was hacked, but that was fixed pretty quickly. Anyway, I always go there when looking for good Howtos, and I've never been disappointed.

Good Luck..

 

Xubuntu or Damn small Linux. Though that machine isn't that low spec imo, CPU is quite powerful though....ah yes, RAM is an issue.

 

Apparently, the SiS 740 graphics sucks - it does not have any 3D hardware acceleration.

 

Debian would work great on there, it doesn't have much ram but the processor is plenty fast.

 

Another vote for debian.
Ubuntu/Xubuntu are based on the debian unstable branch, so you could also try Xubuntu, if you're relatively new at linux.
Graphics card speed does not matter, processor is plenty fast.
RAM is a bit on the low side - could you add more RAM ? It should be inexpensive.

With more ram, it'll run everything Ubuntu/redhat with KDE etc.

If you dont add ram, just work with a lightweight window manager like fluxbox or Xfce.

 

Yes, Antix ! Anticapitalista to the rescue! That's exactly what I would put on a low spec'd machine.

 

Actually the faster Athlons are cheaper on ebay than sticks of ram.

 

I think 512 should be ok, you?
I never use more then 450MBs on my laptop.
I'll add a 1GB Swap.

 

It'll run nicely on 512 MB, provided you dont have memory hog applications.
I tend to use firefox with like 70 tabs open and dont shut it down for days and so it takes up memory

But yeah, 192->512MB = huge difference, 512->onwards only for memory hogs.
It all depends on the price for the extra RAM.
I managed to use SUSE with 512MB ram for a year (with firefox and 3D effects) for a year beacause RAM prices were too high a couple of years ago.

How high are the DDR ram prices ?

 

Pretty high, but this is important

 

Hmm.
Then its totally upto the applications you run.
Linux (with any desktop manager, KDE/Gnome etc) will run great on 512MB.
Will play dvds etc fine.

You only need memory if you plan on running other memory hog apps.
To give an example, I'm now on a PIII 700Mhz 256MB ram computer, running multiple shell terminals, xemacs, ghostview, and compiling some documents. Desktop is fluxbox and disro is RedHat which has not been optimised or stripped down. My web browser though, is running remotely on a more powerful computer. And everything is spiffy

If the price differential between 512 and 1gb is not too much (say aound $30-40), then go for 1GB ram.
If its more than $50, stick with 512MB. $40-50 is the grey zone.

 

In case you don't know, Antix is debian based....it's sleek....I've got an older machine I may put it on if my son let's me hose his old 2d games.....

 

Also wanted to point out that you can get dual core desktops from dell outlet for about $250 without any coupons (and without a monitor)
Or from dell business with a 20" monitor new for $430:
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=04&kc=6W300&l=en&oc=brpc2fj&s=bsd

And they should get cheaper next year.

So dont spend a ton of money upgrading. Maybe 30-40$ for ram

 

Yep, this is just an old desktop I want to make use of...
I like debian, but 21 CDS??????????
I'd be better off spending that money on RAM...

 

I still say try Arch. Only one 166MB CD.

 

I assume you have a net connection ?
In that case, just download the base CD and install other apps off the web.

I burn debian on 3 dvds, but never used them. I used the base CD and installed everything off the web (it was quite fast), all done inside an hr.

 

Yeah, I'm too lazy to fuss with Debian.

 

You need to "fuss" with debian only if you've got wireless or some fancy hardware.
Other stuff just work out of the box.
And things are rock solid

 

I think I'll go with ubuntu.....
Debian, is good but I'm still working out some net connection issues in Ubuntu(we have Alltel's Axess service through are cell phones)

 

Well I have a newish laptop and wireless.

 

Can gnome and kde run well on 256mb ram?
Also can nvidia vanta 16mb run compiz?

 

i doubt the nvidia card can
It MIGHT be able to but then again this is just my opinion
and on 256 mb of ram you should be ok as long as you dont over do all of your settings and get a fast lightweight distro

 

DOS is extremely lightweight

 

haha yeah use compiz in dos!

 

Leisure Suit Larry I runs fine in it though lol

 

"Warp Speed, Number One ......anywhere" lol

 

Have you mentioned Puppy linux here?

I also liked Antix!

One of the most lightweight and still functional ones is SliTaz - 25MB and runs in RAM. It has no wireless support yet, though.

 

There is a wifi support in the latest development build of Slitaz!

 

Why not just use Arch with a *box system? A *box system is all-around lightweight in terms of processor, ram, and HD. If you want the fancy effect of compiz then you can use that only as well. Or you can use a distro that does it for you like flubuntu, etc.

 

I had difficulties with installing Arch (from external USB drive).
Plan to try it again one day.

Slitaz is still lighter, though less usable as well.

 

busybox ftw!

 

I use Arch in an old laptop (1.8GHz Athlon) with Openbox and I have memory usage cut down to ~150mb minus the cache, and that's with firefox on, music playing, and a few other apps open.

I use the following apps:

Web Browser: firefox
Panel: pypanel
File Manager: thunar
Music: audacious
Wallpaper: nitrogen
IM Client: psi
Task Manager: lxtask
GTK Theme Manager: lxappearance
Image Viewer: gpicview
Network Manager: wicd (way better than NetworkManager )

And for coding: geany