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Vanquish · Apr 7, 2003, 05:57 AM

First: I know, this isn't exactly the forum but I don't like PC-fora.

Now this is the problem: I have a IBM ThinkPad 760CD lying around, it has a 120Mhz Pentium, 256 L2 cache, 2GB HD, internal Disk drive and external CD-rom (or the other way around, I think you can exchange them) and 40 MB of RAM (maxed out).
I'm SICK of Windows 95 on this thing, it is *slow*, so I would like to install a barebones Linux with a window-system like WindowMaker on it. It will be used for wordprocessing and maybe email/internet. It can't be too complicated becouse I will donate it to my 'aging' father

.He knows doesn't know a lot about computers (except his nice iBook

that he LOVES).
Question is, what Linux should I use ? somehting fairly easy to install I hope, but distro's like Mandrake or Red Hat are too heavy on the P120 and 40MB of RAM, right ?
So any recommendations on a simple distro that can be easily expanded with X-Windows and a few office/internet-apps ? It HAS to have a GUI, command-line is not an option.

-thanks

utidjian · Apr 7, 2003, 08:40 AM

Your problem is mainly the RAM. You just can't run a "modern" web browser or wordprocessing app on that little bit of RAM. It will be swapping heavily ALL the time. It will be very difficult to use with ANY X-windows window manager. FVWM is pretty light... but as soon as you open a browser or some other app... pffft!

That system will make a nice little network troubleshooter if you leave it all CLI. If it has a working modem it would make a nice fax-server or if you can get two NICs in to it somehow a firewall/router. A low power machine like that will easily saturate a fast ethernet connection... and never break a sweat. Basically all it is good for is a server that doesn't require CPU speed or disk speed.

If the battery is good it already has a built in UPS.

Vanquish · Apr 7, 2003, 09:06 AM

yeah, I was afraid of that. Any others ideas ?

macvillage.net · Apr 7, 2003, 10:30 AM

Perhaps your best bet is to find an older version of a distro that may be lighter on the ram.

Vanquish · Apr 7, 2003, 10:37 AM

well, yeah maybe that'll work, I think I'll look into Debian. It looks pretty lightweight, I don't know.

utidjian · Apr 7, 2003, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by Vanquish:
well, yeah maybe that'll work, I think I'll look into Debian. It looks pretty lightweight, I don't know.

Still the performance will be dissapointing. I have an old Toshiba 440CDT with a P133 and 96M of RAM. It worked OK up to Red Hat 6.2 and with earlier versions. The problem is NOT the Linux kernel and utilities but the applications and window managers. Even if you use a lighter weight window manager the applications will just flatten performance.

In your case (40M of RAM) will really hurt. I can practically guarantee that you will be dissappointed.

There is nothing to stop you from trying it however.