Very old laptop converts to linux! What's the best distro?
These are the specs of the Winbook LM Model 7S30GA.
CPU: Pentium 133Mhz Winbook with Coprocessor
System RAM: 640Kb
Shadow RAM: 384 Kb
Cache Ram: 256 Kb
Video Memory: 896 Kb
Hdisk: 1.443 Gb
Peripherals: COM Ports, LPT Ports, PS/2 Mouse
BIOS: 1985-1985 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
Current System: Windows 98 SE
Prognosis: The system is fine, I just tweaked it and I'd say it is fast in terms of opening the Word program and File Explorer program. I want to convert to faster & stable OS, something that a normal PC user won't expect from an old hardware. This is not being used as it should be now, but I want to raise the value of this machine. I don't know what to expect since this is really old and non-upgradable hardware.
What do you guys think is the maximum potential of this laptop? Any suggestions on the best distro? Puppy? DSL? Any specific from Slackware? Remember i don't have a floppy and a CD-ROM drive, but I got LPT ports for Laplinking and FastLink in the system already. Do i have to convert the filesytem to linux filesystems? Or maintain fat32, since some linux also works in fat32? Will Knoppix run on fat32?
From my farthest sight of my brain, I remembered that my teacher used a 486 as a file server in the LAN. Tsk, Pentium 133 Mhz is better, server anyone?
Re: Very old laptop converts to linux! What's the best distr
I would go for a lightweight distro, damnsmalllinux springs to mind. Otherwise install knoppix but you might want to disable KDE and got for a smaller windows manager. But.... this can be tricky if you are a newbie. I would try DSL first and see how it runs on you laptop. DSL is only 50 megs and has a full gui. On the system you have now Knoppix will have a problem since you don't have much ram. To be honest I've never tried Knoppix on a low end machine like this. The lowest I used it on was a P2 233mhz with 64 mb of ram and a 4 gb harddisk.
Otherwise if you just want a lightweight server, you could allways go for the even smaller distros that just have a commandline. These will run pretty fast on your laptop aswell but.... no gui so you'll have to learn the CLI (Command Line Interface) There are many of these around.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dannyboy
These are the specs of the Winbook LM Model 7S30GA.
CPU: Pentium 133Mhz Winbook with Coprocessor
System RAM: 640Kb
Shadow RAM: 384 Kb
Cache Ram: 256 Kb
Video Memory: 896 Kb
Hdisk: 1.443 Gb
Peripherals: COM Ports, LPT Ports, PS/2 Mouse
BIOS: 1985-1985 Phoenix Technologies Ltd.
Current System: Windows 98 SE
Prognosis: The system is fine, I just tweaked it and I'd say it is fast in terms of opening the Word program and File Explorer program. I want to convert to faster & stable OS, something that a normal PC user won't expect from an old hardware. This is not being used as it should be now, but I want to raise the value of this machine. I don't know what to expect since this is really old and non-upgradable hardware.
What do you guys think is the maximum potential of this laptop? Any suggestions on the best distro? Puppy? DSL? Any specific from Slackware? Remember i don't have a floppy and a CD-ROM drive, but I got LPT ports for Laplinking and FastLink in the system already. Do i have to convert the filesytem to linux filesystems? Or maintain fat32, since some linux also works in fat32? Will Knoppix run on fat32?
From my farthest sight of my brain, I remembered that my teacher used a 486 as a file server in the LAN. Tsk, Pentium 133 Mhz is better, server anyone?
