Computer Assistance Please

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 10:52 pm

NonChalant wrote:
eaglecatcher wrote:
NonChalant wrote:Eh, you don't need more RAM. Linux runs fine with whatever you have. Just make your swap partition big (a gig at least).

I ran gentoo linux on my old p500something with 128mb of ram. Smoother and more reliable than my new windows desktop.
grrr. this version of ubuntu requires 384MB of ram. wtf.

so now I gotta figure out another solution. I'm going linux for sure. How hard is gentoo to use?
Eh. Gentoo is the easiest and the hardest distro to use. I wouldn't really recommend it to you as a first-time user. You can try some version of fedora or mandrake or maybe debian, but debian is a little harder than the others as well.

That said, I used Gentoo as my first distro with very little knowledge, so it's possible to get into linux like that. But you've got to be really willing to learn and make mistakes and spend a lot of time on simple tasks After all that work though, you'll really be an expert.

If you want an easy, user-friendly distro, go for fedora or mandrake.

What about MEPISLite? I did some digging, and its designed for older machines with like 20gig hard drives, 128MB of RAM, and currently running win98. Sounds like it was made for that computer

NonChalant · Post by **NonChalant** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:04 pm

Never heard of MEPIS or MEPISLite. Might sound ideal, but I doubt it'll be as user-friendly as Mandrake or Fedora, which has huge backings in the open source community.

All your choice though!

You could also try a linux system from scratch (i.e. compile everything yourself). It'll take forever on that old system but will be the most ideal and bare bones as you make it for that old box.

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:12 pm

NonChalant wrote:Never heard of MEPIS or MEPISLite. Might sound ideal, but I doubt it'll be as user-friendly as Mandrake or Fedora, which has huge backings in the open source community.

All your choice though!

You could also try a linux system from scratch (i.e. compile everything yourself). It'll take forever on that old system but will be the most ideal and bare bones as you make it for that old box.

lol. me, make a linux system?

pfft. No way in hell I coudl do that.

NonChalant · Post by **NonChalant** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:15 pm

eaglecatcher wrote:
NonChalant wrote:Never heard of MEPIS or MEPISLite. Might sound ideal, but I doubt it'll be as user-friendly as Mandrake or Fedora, which has huge backings in the open source community.

All your choice though!

You could also try a linux system from scratch (i.e. compile everything yourself). It'll take forever on that old system but will be the most ideal and bare bones as you make it for that old box.
lol. me, make a linux system?

pfft. No way in hell I coudl do that.

it's actually a lot easier than it sounds: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Check out the "why" page here

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:16 pm

NonChalant wrote:
eaglecatcher wrote:
NonChalant wrote:Never heard of MEPIS or MEPISLite. Might sound ideal, but I doubt it'll be as user-friendly as Mandrake or Fedora, which has huge backings in the open source community.

All your choice though!

You could also try a linux system from scratch (i.e. compile everything yourself). It'll take forever on that old system but will be the most ideal and bare bones as you make it for that old box.
lol. me, make a linux system?

pfft. No way in hell I coudl do that.
it's actually a lot easier than it sounds: http://www.linuxfromscratch.org/

Check out the "why" page here

hmm, I may do that. Sounds like something interesting, and woudl probably get me major bonus points in my computer science class. lol

NonChalant · Post by **NonChalant** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:17 pm

If you do decide to embark on the lfs journey, don't say I didn't warn you

It's tedious, unnecessary, annoying, and takes forever.
But when you're done you'll know how everything works.

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:19 pm

NonChalant wrote:If you do decide to embark on the lfs journey, don't say I didn't warn you

It's tedious, unnecessary, annoying, and takes forever.
But when you're done you'll know how everything works.

k, nvm. lol

I"m just gonna download mandriva and put that to work.

it better work...

otherwise i'm gonna have to return this fancy new keyboard. lol

NonChalant · Post by **NonChalant** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:22 pm

eaglecatcher wrote:
NonChalant wrote:If you do decide to embark on the lfs journey, don't say I didn't warn you

It's tedious, unnecessary, annoying, and takes forever.
But when you're done you'll know how everything works.
k, nvm. lol

I"m just gonna download mandriva and put that to work.

it better work...

otherwise i'm gonna have to return this fancy new keyboard. lol

Heh. it's been a while. I wasn't even aware that they had a name change

Good luck with that. If none of those "easy" distros work out for you then I'd say give gentoo a go (that's the distro I first started out with on a pc with similar specs).

If you absolutely hate that, return the keyboard and put win98 back on it; linux isn't for you

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:29 pm

I really want ubuntu. i wonder if there is anywhere I can get an older version that will run off of 128MB of ram.

But I'm working on it at the moment, its downloading from the mirror (mandriva).

NonChalant · Post by **NonChalant** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:34 pm

eaglecatcher wrote:I really want ubuntu. i wonder if there is anywhere I can get an older version that will run off of 128MB of ram.

But I'm working on it at the moment, its downloading from the mirror (mandriva).

Ubuntu isn't really anything special. Most distros are the same, after all they're all still linux. Just the tools and stuff are different and the default looks.

The only thing you might miss from Ubuntu using Mandrake is a software management tool called "apt."

I don't get why Ubuntu requires a certain amount of RAM. It might be more bloated than I originally thought.

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sat Oct 27, 2007 11:56 pm

NonChalant wrote:
eaglecatcher wrote:I really want ubuntu. i wonder if there is anywhere I can get an older version that will run off of 128MB of ram.

But I'm working on it at the moment, its downloading from the mirror (mandriva).
Ubuntu isn't really anything special. Most distros are the same, after all they're all still linux. Just the tools and stuff are different and the default looks.

The only thing you might miss from Ubuntu using Mandrake is a software management tool called "apt."

I don't get why Ubuntu requires a certain amount of RAM. It might be more bloated than I originally thought.

I dunno, fedora requires like 192MB of ram. I could have run the text version of ubuntu, but I dunno, is that like DOS, or is it like windows 95/98 or something?

Nychold · Post by **Nychold** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 12:14 am

nothfx wrote:
Nychold wrote:All operating systems suck, in some respect or other. Linux sucks for ease of use, Windows sucks for stability, Mac sucks for both.
Eh, linux doesn't really suck for ease of use anymore (unless you plan to try and install some windows progs....), and windows is far more reliable than it used to be

mac, well mac has some fanboys for sure.

When Linux works right, I agree. It's not that difficult to work with. The problem with Linux is the open source loons out there. They write something, through it into the distribution, then brag that "DOOD! I'm in the new distribution of **** Linux!" They don't test it, they don't make sure it works, and although it works on THEIR machine, it's garbage on everyone else's. (Yeah, I've been there...mostly in Linux 64 bit.)

Bawked · Post by **Bawked** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 12:47 am

eaglecatcher, Ubuntu uses gnome which uses a bit of resources so switch it out for a light weight windows manager fluxbox is one iirc, another is iceWM info about it and some others here: http://www.linux.com/articles/37552 and for how to do it http://www.tuxfiles.org/linuxhelp/changeman.html.

Hope this helps on the quest to getting Ubuntu to work, also when your addicted to Linux and want to setup a power box

search "beryl" on youtube to see what your linux desktop can be like.

Ecmslee · Post by **Ecmslee** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 1:04 am

You could try Xubuntu. Xubuntu is an officially supported version of Ubuntu that uses the more lightweight Xfce desktop. The webpage for Xubuntu is here-
http://www.xubuntu.org/
and you can get the iso's and see the system requirements here-
http://www.xubuntu.org/get

Hope that helps.

eaglecatcher · Post by **eaglecatcher** » Sun Oct 28, 2007 1:41 am

I've got Mandriva installing at the moment. Hopefully it will work. It does look promising though, its working.

I'm gonna need a new monitor, but then again, I can always just get a used projector for my birthday, and use that as my monitor and play on the ceiling or something.