Calling All Frugal Hardware Users

**dvryknopper** · 03-16-2006, 07:50 PM

I have often heard that linux distros are used by frugal users who are trying to breath new life into obsolete machines. I am curious about any information that can be provided about generally helping old machines "be all that they can be". What hardware specs would you consider to be the minimum for adequate (tolerable program loading speeds and program usability) for knoppix and equivalently sized distros such as kanotix. When are micro distros the best compromise for older machines?

**Cuddles** · 03-19-2006, 06:25 PM

dvryknopper,

Not quite sure if this is "on topic", but, Linux has, IMHO, been a GodSend to both older, as well as, "cutting edge" systems. Speaking from the Kanotix Camp, I think Linux has been doing an excellent job of providing support for the newest stuff coming out on the market... Add with this, the fact that, many, Distro's, provide "downgraded" resource consumption, both in hardware drives and memory, to keep an "ever increasing" market of the "not so new" machines.

Considering, that, every time M$ releases a new OS, another machine gets dropped from the "support" of it, Linux, appears, to be the OS that is "picking these systems up". Linux is branching out into markets, that, M$ could only "hope" to be getting into, but, fails to provide for, in a OS. If nothing else, Linux is growing because of its "dynamic" usage, and "inclusiveness", not to mention, that, if someone has a "need", most of the time, a "Linux" Distro is there for the market, or, one can be designed for it.

I am quite sure, that, the people who have all the newest and greatest, can vouch for Linux being "pretty close" to providing the support for them, and, as many machines become "too old" to run "the latest and greatest", provided by M$, a lot more people who have those machines will either have to deal with running a OS that is either behind in years, and dropped support from there creator, or, they will be making there way over to the Linux Camp. Which, it appears, Linux is more than happy to support them.

I can see why some of these Linux "downgraded" Distro's exist... Not everyone has a "never exhausted" supply of money, and not everyone wants to make a good working machine into an expensive door-stop -=- I really cant see the reasoning why someone would have to, just because an OS has gotten too bulky, or has every bell and whistle that no one will ever use, or, require a person buy more hardware just "to keep up with the Jones'" thinking...

I used to have an old XT desktop computer, complete with all the 8 bit cards... When it came time for me to move into the AT Class, the system became a "junker". I found someone, who, appreciated what the XT could do, and pretty much, just wanted a system that did wordprocessing, etc... They were glad to take the system off my hands, and continue to use the system to its full potential. For all I know, they are still using the system. Our World has become the greatest in this whole "disposable" theory, we trash many things, that, still have usefulness... And, it is nice to see that "something" is keeping this from happening. I have not tried any of the "smaller" requirement Linux Distro's, in fact, I run KDE, which, from what I hear, is the best thing for memory / resource hogging, but... as time goes on... I am sure that, the newest and greatest, if not constantly kept up-to-date, will sooner or later, become the antiques of the computer world... The computer field is more dynamic than any other market, possibly with Photo and Audio equipment coming in at a close second. With this "dynamic-ness", comes, a little "fray" of the edges, a few people, who, get "dropped" from inclusion, every day, week, month, or year, from being "in" with the current latest and greatest. Its good to see, that, Linux is providing support for those, who, dont have, say, tons of money, to, keep buying more memory, or buying bigger, larger, or more powerful, processors. I am still floored by people in the Linux Community, who are using USB Sticks, or Flash, for running a completely viable Operating System - add into this, the whole LiveCD thing, and, as I see it, Linux has rewrote the meaning of "OS" and a "SYSTEM"... Running systems that are; head-less, drive-less, and still being, a complete machine, thats amazing, really.

Anyway, I vote for "Puppy", not that I use it, just that its got a cute name... maybe, in a few years, when my system isnt kept up to state-of-the-art, I will be trying Puppy, just for the sake of necessity... who knows... but, I'm sure glad that something is there, whether I need it now, later, or, whatever.

Ms. Cuddles
-=- Come to the Dark Side - We have penguins! -=-

**dvryknopper** · 03-20-2006, 06:16 AM

thx for your reply cuddles. I have an older desktop at home that I installed Fedora Core 3 on, on a somewhat unstable hard drive that windows will not install onto period. FC3 is great but it seems to slow the machine down due to its large size, a "problem" which is exaserbated by the fact that the drive is unstable, I lean towards puppy as a micro distro too, I've tried DSL, it is intriguing but puppy seems to me to be better than DSL right out of the box.

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-20-2006, 07:23 AM

Hey, I have an idea: Debian testing, aka etch. Unlike Knoppix it is actually intended for hard disk. You can install just the programs that you want without the bloat of extra programs from a Live CD. The "Desktop environment" defaults to Gnome, but you can install KDE or if you want you can install a light GUI like Fluxbox. Or don't install a GUI at all if you want to be really frugal or you have a system with even less memory than 64 megs. I've done a net-install of it recently on an old Pentiun 166 with 64 megs of memory and it went extremly smoothly and did not need lots of technical input from me to do the install (honestly, the most technical things I answered was where to put Grub and to use the largest available free space on the hard disk).

Sure, there are some Live CD distros that are more stable than Knoppix when installed to hard disk, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to install just what you want from a distro that you know is intended for hard disk? Etch addresses many of the complaints of Debian being hard to install. Give it a try. And, of course, any of the Debian packages that you want can be installed easily with the apt-get system, without risking the stability of the other packages.

**eco2geek** · 03-20-2006, 08:39 AM

I've run Knoppix and Kanotix (among others) on an old 500MHz AMD K6-based computer with good results. KDE on a 233 MHz AMD was pretty slow. That's probably about the point at which you'd want to start looking for something lighter. Anything less than a 586, you'd definitely want something like Puppy or DSL. Or just run your favorite distro using a light-weight UI like Fluxbox or IceWM (plus some light-weight apps), or with no GUI at all. (Of course, I'd always be trying to run Konqueror...)

I haven't used Puppy in a while. (Just for personal reasons -- for some reason, the way they do the "hard sell" strikes me as a bit off-putting.) I like DSL for a number of reasons:

It's based on Knoppix, and can be installed to your hard drive and become Debian-compliant
These guys have USB booting figured out. If you want to install it to your USB key, they have a menu-driven script that'll do it
Questions get answered very quickly in their forums, often by the devs themselves
Good choice of light-weight apps & utilities for a 50MB distro
Extensible using pre-packaged "MyDSL" binaries (sort of like klik)

**sakiZ** · 03-20-2006, 05:07 PM

<<Considering, that, every time M$ releases a new OS, another machine gets dropped from the "support" of it, Linux, appears, to be the OS that is "picking these systems up". Linux is branching out into markets, that, M$ could only "hope" to be getting into, but, fails to provide for, in a OS.>>

Ms. Cuddles, your reply was so eloquent that it should be a sticky! I have not experimented with Linux on slower equipment, but let me address your statement above.

I am sure you have read that the new Vista 3D interface will only run on 50% of the computers out there. And all the Vista reviewers I read say it will require the latest hardware to run efficiently. (I for one don't want to buy a 3 ghz machine just to run Vista.) The hope is of course that via the $500 million! ad campaign M$ will sell some folks on the idea that they just have to have this and thus will covince many people to not just buy Vista but -- a new computer system too!!! Hmm.

While I don't believe, yet, that M$ takes outright kickbacks from hardware vendors like Intel or Nvidia, they have a pretty cozy symbiotic relationship going. That kind of strategy may work in the U.S. and other very affluent nations. It feeds the afluenza consumer-driven psychosis that drives our economy. But that kind of growth is short sighted if you apply a global perspective.

Look at the amazing rise of Linux in 3rd world nations. M$ efforts OTOH, there look so clumsy and futile as they try to push their crippled OS versions on folks. As Linux is the perfect OS for those just entering the computer age with it's ability to run on older hardware, it's easy to predict it will continue to grow rapidly in those areas. That's the future of Linux right there!

Go Linux!

sakiZ

**dvryknopper** · 03-21-2006, 03:07 AM

Thx for the replys. I'll have to give DSL another look, I'm thinking about doing a USB install of puppy and DSL, has anyone suceeded in a dual boot thumbdrive using grub? I have become more interested in Debian lately I may give it a try if I get a higher capacity drive for installing more distros for testing

**Harry Kuhman** · 03-21-2006, 03:19 AM

Originally Posted by dvryknopper

Thx for the replys. I'll have to give DSL another look, I'm thinking about doing a USB install of puppy and DSL, has anyone suceeded in a dual boot thumbdrive using grub? I have become more interested in Debian lately I may give it a try if I get a higher capacity drive for installing more distros for testing

The recent DSL does seem to be a very nice system and has a really nice Klik-like package system (I'm not clear on why it does not use klik though). But a small Debian system should not need a high capacity drive, it should be able to have a pretty small footprint if you don't try to install too much. After all, DSL is indirectly based on Debian.

**Kowood** · 03-28-2006, 03:56 AM

My webserver http://kanix.co.nr (redirect to http://furiu.zapto.org) is a 166mhz 586 with 32 megs of ram. And it's also a router and fileserver and DHCP server. And it's still faster than my sister's 501mhz Pentium 3 with 128 megs o' ram and a fresh WinXP install. Linux is great for things like this.