Linux Format forums

mm2ps · Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:12 pm Posts: 29

Hi,

I have just installed Zenwalk on an old PII laptop. This had been broken for a few years and I wanted to revive it. After fixing the screen I also added some extra ram and a new hard drive.

In the past (a long time ago) it had worked adequately with Mandrake 9.0. Mandrake had a fantastic user friendly graphical install. This time, before Zenwalk, I had no luck with the likes of Xubuntu, Puppy and DSL even with a non-graphical install.

My question is, excluding the KDE and Gnome, what is it about modern Linux distributions (Not Puuppy, Zenwalk and DSL and other small distros) that require 128MB of ram to install even without a graphical installer?

I don't understand why I should not be able to install any distribution, as long as I can select the software and avoid big windows managers, on anything.

We often hear that Linux can breath new life into old hardware but in my experience (old) Windows has always been more responsive than the Linux I replaced it with. Although, I'm still happier with Linux for all its other benefits.

Kind regards,

Douglas

nelz

If you are going to exclude all small distros from your list, you are only left with the large ones. So why complain that they are large? Most distros are designed to run on modern hardware, so less than 128MB is not a consideration. Why is that a problem when there are several distros designed form older or limited hardware?
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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

AndyBaxman · LXF regular Joined: Tue Oct 04, 2005 9:47 am Posts: 519

I think you answered your own question.

modern distros are designed for modern computers.

I had no trouble installing Ubuntu on an old (2001) Dell Inspiron 7500 with 512k ram BTW. Try that with Vista.
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mm2ps · Joined: Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:12 pm Posts: 29

I was curious as to what Linux is doing with all that ram during installation and why it can't manage without it? Specifically, if your not using a graphical install.

That was all.

Best,

Douglas

nelz · Posted: Fri May 22, 2009 12:42 pm Post subject:

Some installers run from a large ramdisk, that's why installation needs so much memory.

Andy: it was intended to be a rhetorical question Smile

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Unix is user-friendly. It's just very selective about who it's friends are.

ajgreeny · Posted: Sat May 23, 2009 10:33 pm Post subject:

You could try the ubuntu minimal install cd from https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/MinimalCD and then add anything you wanted from the repos, eg xorg and lxde for the desktop environment, window manager, (very fast) and other apps as you feel you want. I have done it in a virtual machine just to try it out, and can see it would be a great way to get ubuntu with just the minimum you need.

nordle · LXF regular Joined: Fri Apr 08, 2005 10:56 pm Posts: 1497

Last week I installed xubuntu onto a P2-266 laptop with 144MB RAM. Switched to using LXDE. With this system running Firefox, Abiword, Gnumeric, Geany, Apache2, PostgreSQL and PgAdmin3 the laptop was using 90MB RAM!!

My main desktop is 20x as powerful, and this really showed up when updating data in a database. 96,000 rows on the desktop took 6 mins, on the laptop this took 2.5 hours!

But the actual desktop experience wasn't too bad. Genuinely surprised how good it is, considering.
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