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Journal bhtooefr's Journal: Linux for Older Systems? (plus review of MDK 9.2) 14

Journal by bhtooefr

I recently acquired a P233MMX with 96MB of RAM (details here), and I'm trying to find a good distro for it. Here's what I've found:

Debian works well as a server, but I can't get it to work at all as a workstation.
Damn Small Linux works great as a temporary distro, but it has many bottlenecks (caused by the fact that it runs from CD and that it uses Kdrive Xvesa instead of XFree86).
Fedora? It needs 192MB RAM for graphical, and my system has a maximum of 128 (damn TX chipset).
SuSE isn't very compatible with additional software; about half the RPMs and 90% of the source .tar.gzs that I tried on another system didn't work.
Mandrake? Hardware looks fine (Pentium I is OK, 128MB RECOMMENDED, not required, but I know it's KDE-based, and I don't like that they make finding ISOs a BITCH to do.

What else is there? Is there a good modern distro for this purpose that is easy to use (ala SuSE or RH)?

Update: I'm running Mandrake 9.2 with KDE 3.1.3 on this system, and it's quite usable. I have approximately 650MB allocated to swap, which is probably why I'm able to type this. Mandrake doesn't seem to be put together very well, by the way. SuSE was tightly integrated, but you couldn't add software easily (it not being RH - however, some software in the YaST2 list already didn't work either). RH was bloated, but seemed to be fairly tightly integrated, and could easily take *random RPM here*. MDK seems to be very fast, but just feels like it was slapped together. I'm still looking for a decent distro for any purpose, then, as MDK doesn't seem to be a very good distro. I'd recommend SuSE to a beginner who was OK with the stock capabilities of the distro, Fedora to a beginner to intermediate with a VERY good PC and in need of apps, and Mandrake to... nobody.

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Linux for Older Systems? (plus review of MDK 9.2) More

Linux for Older Systems? (plus review of MDK 9.2)

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    • Sorry, but I need something easier (I made my entry a bit more clear). BTW, I now have some more for my list from your link.

      However, Peanut seems bloated and outdated, Crux seems to be missing a lot of useful stuff, and Vector is Slack-based, which could cause some problems.

      By the way, it looks like I'll be running Mandrake with IceWM, but thanks for your help.
  • I've heard that Slackware is good for small systems, but I haven't actually used it in years, so I have no idea what it's like. Personally, I use Gentoo on my Pentium II 233, but that's because I'm weird. I'd recommend staying away from KDE, because on a system that small, it's going to be painful no matter what distribution you use.
    • I decided to try out Mandrake, and IceWM was horrible. I had KDE experience, so I decided I could always switch back to IceWM, and tried KDE (yes, I'm insane). After I switched to the KDE Redmond theme, and changed the widgets to Qt Windows, it's not that slow.
      • Which KDE version? the 2.x series arent *that* slow on older comps. But anyway though it seems you've given up on IceWM, have you tried out the blackbox style of WM? Fluxbox, especially, is a really relaly nice lightweight window manager (not desktop environment as KDE, just a window manager) but its a nice balance between looking good and being light.
        • Believe it or not, this is KDE 3.1. OK, so I gave it ~650MB of swap to play with, but it's not that bad. BTW, Damn Small Linux comes with Fluxbox, and it wasn't my cup of tea. Blackbox is actually one of the WMs installed on my config (the quick and easy selection method gave me WindowMaker (god no), IceWM, and Blackbox on top of the default of KDE).
  • I'd suggest trying Gentoo. You install only what you want, and programs are all compiled to only use the libraries youwant. You compile it optimized for your puny little system.
    • I only recently started out on Linux, I can barely figure out where I am in Vi(m) (at least I can get out...), and Debian didn't work for me. I decided to go the insane route, and use Mandrake with KDE. 3.1, too. I'm posting from it, so it's obviously usable, but I gave it over 600MB of swap to play with on the good hard drive.
    • I'm working on minute linux, of course it's for OOOOOLD machine (8086, i386)

      though I might make add-ons so it'll work more like a common desktop system for old, but not so old machines.

      I have a 433 myself, yeah, it's sad,, I know.
  • With a HDinstall will give you debian unstable with XFCE4 desktop environment. I'm not sure what your beef is though, I've run a bunch of distros, including Fedora, on my 233/128mb Tecra 8000 and while it's not fast, it copes. I recently got another 128 rams for it, and now I can even run KDE without swapping (much :)

    I did have some trouble booting from the morphix CD though - the workaround is to download a 1.4mb boot image from the morphix site, boot to that and swap to the morphix CD, boot and install t
    • You ran Fedora on a box with 128MB RAM? Fedora's site says 192 minimum, so that's why I ruled it out (my mobo can only take 128MB RAM, and I've only got 96 in it). I'm currently running Mandrake 9.2, and I'm running KDE on it, even. It barely swaps - put one up for efficient distros! (although, I might go to Fedora, even if it's only for guaranteed compatibility with RH RPMs)
      • Yeah, I just never bothered to read the specs, and it ran fine. Thing is, most distros have about the same basic requirements, which are determined mainly by which DE and what other programs you're running. Mandrake+KDE and Fedora+KDE should be basically the same, in terms of raw RAM usage. KDE's minimum is only 96MB on its own, I'm not sure why Fedora gives such a big minimum. Still, with 128 the change to XFCE4 was a big help, tons faster.

        I canned both Mandrake and Fedora because of cruft, and I'm now r

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