Knoppix 5.1.1 - 128MB swap on P2-200MHz 32MB RAM doesnt work

[Chris2222]

That's right a Pentium 200MHz with 32Mb of RAM :shock: I'm trying to use Knoppix 5.1.1 KDE with a swap file size of 128Mb and it doesn't work :? I thought a larger swap file would allow you to run it?

I first tried a swap file of 60Mb and after trying to load it said I needed 82Mb of RAM and it just loaded knoppix with a shell prompt. Then I tried a swap file size of 128Mb, it took forever to finish doing what it was doing (running on 30 minutes or so) then finally it said. You need at least 82Mb more memory.

Am I going to be able to use the GUI in knoppix with this setup or am I going to have to find more RAM.

[Harry Kuhman]

..... or am I going to have to find more RAM.
Knoppix runs painfully slow even on a 64 meg ram system. I would certainly advise against wasting any money on RAM for a system that old. If you can find some free memory that is suitable go ahead and try it. But you could likely buy a used old system with more RAM and a faster CPU (and other hardware) for much less than the cost of buying just ram that would fit in that old system.

[cbagger01]

That's right a Pentium 200MHz with 32Mb of RAM :shock: I'm trying to use Knoppix 5.1.1 KDE with a swap file size of 128Mb and it doesn't work :? I thought a larger swap file would allow you to run it?

I first tried a swap file of 60Mb and after trying to load it said I needed 82Mb of RAM and it just loaded knoppix with a shell prompt. Then I tried a swap file size of 128Mb, it took forever to finish doing what it was doing (running on 30 minutes or so) then finally it said. You need at least 82Mb more memory.

Am I going to be able to use the GUI in knoppix with this setup or am I going to have to find more RAM.

Realistically, you should have a minimum of 128MB of physical RAM memory in order to run knoppix with the KDE graphical desktop.

There are some ways that you can use to use less RAM such as booting to a text console (no graphics) or by using a less memory hungry window manager like Fluxbox. For example, boot with:

knoppix 2

or

knoppix desktop=fluxbox

However, for only 32MB of RAM your best bet is to use a livecd that is intended for such a machine, for example Damn Small Linux.