Recommended Linux Distro for a 400MHz PII?

I have an old Dell Dimension XPS R400 desktop laying around that I want to breathe some new life into. It has a 400MHz Pentium II processor, 384MB RAM, a 12GB hard drive, and an nVidia TNT 16MB graphics card. What recommendations do you guys have for a Linux distro/window manager that would fast on such a machine? I've tried Xubuntu, but it's pretty slow (not as slow as Ubuntu, but definitely slower than Windows 98).

I've found a few options (D**n Small Linux, Knoppix for distros; FVWM, Fluxbox, IceWM for window managers), but I'd like to get some input from other, more educated Linux users.

 

For a machine like that Id run CLI only. As for distros, debian can be built pretty lean, as well as centos (might be dying).

 

I have the same computer sitting here but with 192mb ram. I used to run ubuntu 5.04 on it (a long time ago) which ran 'ok'. I eventually put winXP (tweaked with less services) back on it because i needed to run some legacy software. You might give puppy linux a try.

 

I have a PIII that runs debian etch with backports. It's actually a Penguin Computing machine! From like 1999. LOL. It's slow but it works. I would not run a full gnome desktop on an old machine, but OP has plenty of RAM so it shouldn't be *that* slow. Half the problem with my old PIII is that it's constantly swapping to disk. A minimal debian install with xfce or lxde should be OK. It's more of a question of what you want to do with it.

 

lol I like your new userbars.

 

Give Crunchbang! a try. It is the fastest OS/environment that I have tested on old hardware and low sys specs.

CrunchBang Linux - A nimble Openbox Linux distro

 

Thanks for the input so far! I will have to look into those suggestions. That said, what are your takes on D**n small linux and *possibly* Knoppix?

 

You might want to try the Enlightenment window manager.

 

Basically,
any distro will do, but you'll have to use some light-weight desktop manager.
I went on similar machine with CentOS 5.x and XFCE., turned off any unnecessary services.
Working pretty good.

 

Basically this ^. You can build a very light environment, if you choose to do so yourself, but since their are so many great,light distros out there that do the hard work for you why not choose one of those?

Just makes it much easier.

Start here and sort by Desktop environment -- LXDE,XFCE,Openbox,FLUXBOX-- for light environments, etc.

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

 

If you're fine with some learning to do I'd recommend Arch, coupled with LXDE you should have a sufficiently usable system.

 

I run Debian with LXDE on a similar machine. Just make sure to use lean software.

 

I just looked up LXDE, and that seems like a good option for a desktop environment. Since Ubuntu is based off of debian, I'll probably try out your setup first.

That said, I won't have access to that machine for another few weeks; it's back at my parent's house. I just wanted to get some ideas ahead of time so I can save myself some frustration.

 

Some suggestions for software:
browser: midori
mail client: claws mail
office suite: abiword + gnumeric (Should be fine if you don't need presentations or vector drawings like OO impress or draw.)
music player: lxmusic

I'd also suggest to only install a minimal system without an x-server, and then add lxde-core. If you need a login manager try slim.

 

slackware with blackbox

 

I would *not* recommend installing any pre-configured distro.
Arch is bleeding edge, so I wouldn't recommend it for newbies.

What I would recommend? Download Debian netinstall and manually install whatever you need.

 

Is there another way of installing Debian or why do you emphasize that?

 

My point was to avoid something-Debian-based which has some apps installed already, I've wrote it in incorrect way

About netinstall - yes, it would be much simpler than downloading 8 DVDs...

 

Puppy Linux has been pretty good, but JWM is not my favorite WM.

You could try out Arch and make your own lightweight setup. It's really good practice for learning Linux. Arch is my distro, and if you're willing to do some work, read the WONDERFUL arch wiki, and get down and dirty with Linux, then Arch is for you.

Otherwise, do what ThinkLover said and do a Debian netinstall.

 

To follow up, mine is the R450 (450mhz) with 192mb ram. I just installed crunchbang 10 with openbox. It seems to run ok. I might try antiX next.

 

I'll probably try crunchbang 10 w/ openbox then. How does it compare to say, Windows 98 speed-wise?

 

hard to say. I haven't used win98 since xp came out. That being said, i find crunchbang easy to use and nice on the eyes, but it is a little slow on this old hardware. There is a new review of #! that just came out:

DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

 

Are you considering any hardware upgrades? A PII 400MHz isn't going to give snappy performance on anything newer than Win 98.

I still have an old XPS R350 around, which is similar to your machine but originally had an even slower CPU (PII 350MHz). As I recall you can go up to PIII 800MHz, beyond that the motherboard cannot supply enough power to the CPU. This is the CPU I put into my R350 years ago and it runs Win XP fine if a bit slow. I also upped the RAM to 768 MB.

 

This sounds pretty awesome...haha

 

The whole idea of running ancient hardware is to find out how much performance you can squeeze out of it while still having a system that you personally consider to be useful.
In this case hardware upgrades are like cheating and you'll think twice which level of cheating is ok and which is not.
My desktop computer currently has a 450MHz CPU, 320MB RAM and 8+10GB HDD. Originally it only had a 350MHz CPU, 128MB of RAM and the 8GB HDD. Upgrading CPU, RAM and HDD seemed to be ok for me, but I'd never upgrade the main board and the current one is pretty much maxed out with the current components. So this system won't receive any significant upgrades anymore.

Now that you mention it, why not try awesome?:
about - awesome window manager

 

I'm using Awesome for over 6 months, it's 'awesome' piece of software!
Once you learn configuration syntax, you can easily customize it with all your needs.

 

A minimal install of Debian Squeeze with OpenBox will run just fine on that machine.

 

I don't think Blackbox is maintained any longer. Openbox or FLuxbox would be more than likely better alternatives.

 

I'm running puppy 5.2.5 now with full install to hdd and I'm actually really liking it.

 

Quoted for truth! That's the main reason why I want to install a useful linux distro on my R400: I want to see how fast and useful it can be with modern software. Besides, I don't feel like sinking money into a 12+ year old PC (although a CD/DVD burner would be very handy).

Thanks for the suggestions so far! I'll have access to my old R400 later this evening, although I may not have time to play with it for a few days. I'll keep you guys posted.

 

You may want to give Bodhi Linux a try. It's a very new Ubuntu based distro that uses the Enlightenment desktop environment and is supposedly pretty light on resources. It's pretty darn quick on my desktop, but I can't say I've tried to get it to run on older hardware.

 

I would try Slackware with a lightweight window manager (like Openbox, FVWM, Window Maker).

Probably you won't be able to do much in the way of running modern applications like Firefox or OpenOffice, tho'.

 

Arch i686 w/ LXDE and ext2 w/ noatime; NO Firefox. Use a lightweight web browser with ad-blocking via /etc/hosts. Use the netinstall image and get kernel 2.6.38 with the improved process scheduler.

IMHO.

 

Years ago I was running Fedora core 1 on a machine like that. When I switched to Gentoo I can report anecdotally that usability improved greatly. Updates were a nightmare though. I vote Gentoo .. and lots of time waiting for the install to finish