[nylug-talk] Distro Recommendation... for an old, cruddy machine.

[Pann McCuaig]

On Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at 00:50, Zach Stern wrote:

> I'd definitely have to reccomend Xubuntu over damn small linux. The
> thing is, while DSL is super fast on old machines, all the tools are
> obscure.
>
> Any gnome or kde or even windows user will get along on Xubuntu very
> well, as it has a fairly familiar GUI. But with DSL they sacrifice
> everything for speed/binary size. So instead of firefox, for example,
> you have dillo.
>
> Browsing the web with dillo is just a pain in the neck.

Actually, both dillo and firefox are available in the default install.
DSL has a rather nice method for adding software if you've got the
memory and CPU horsepower for it.

> Stick with Xubuntu, or at least another distro optimized for older
> machines that has a somewhat reasonable selection of software
> installed.

I'm an Xubuntu fan, composing this email in mutt under Xubuntu, but
depending on the hardware and the user's needs, don't write off DSL.

> Not to mention DSL is still using kernel 2.4.x due to binary size, and
> that may or may not cause you problems.

Shouldn't be an issue at all with older hardware. And believe it or not,
Ubuntu kernels aren't necessarily friendly to older hardware. Although
the install kernel for Ubuntu through 7.04 ran fine on my T23, the
installed kernel was T23 hostile. I ran Ubuntu with a Gentoo kernel on
that machine. On my "new" T41, however, the Ubuntu kernels run fine.

As always, YMMV.

Cheers,
 Pann
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Kristian Erik Hermansen" <kristian.hermansen at gmail.com>
> 
> Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:42:46 
> To:"NYLUG Technical Discussion" <nylug-talk at nylug.org>
> Subject: Re: [nylug-talk] Distro Recommendation... for an old,
> 	cruddy machine.
> 
> 
> On Jan 24, 2008 4:12 PM, Steven Lembark <lembark at wrkhors.com> wrote:
> > Gentoo is fairly easy to install and allows you
> > to be rather specific on what gets loaded. The
> > stage-3 install (only one supported at this
> > point) takes about 40 minutes (less if you burn
> > an install CD and use local media).
> 
> Err, old machine might have slow cpu == long compile times :-(
> 
> > You might want to look into optimizing the kernel
> > for size also if the system has a fairly specific
> > use.
> 
> I would recommend Xubuntu or Damn Small Linux...just my two cents here...
> -- 
> Kristian Erik Hermansen
> "Know something about everything and everything about something."

-- 
geek by nature, Linux by choice                     L I N U X       .~.
                                                    The Choice      /V\
http://vps.ourmanpann.com/oss/                       of a GNU      /( )\
                                                    Generation     ^^-^^