old version of linux

sroberts82

folks, im knew to this whole game and need some help. I have an old laptop, dell latitude CP which i tried putting linux on. However it is far too slow so does anyone know where i could get my paws on an older less taxing version?

SkepticOne

BasicLinux

http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux/

"BasicLinux is designed specifically for old PCs. It uses a small kernel and busybox to provide a low-RAM Linux, capable of browsing the web, doing email, and functioning as an X terminal. The current release of BasicLinux is particularly suitable for old laptops -- it has PCMCIA capability and includes MagicPoint (a presentation tool similar to PowerPoint)."

Worth a go. Haven't used it in a while myself though.

MarkR

I have that DVD from linux format this month, has a load of the smaller distros on it. It has Knoppix 3.2, Slackware 10.0, Gentoo 2004.1, Arch Linux, TheOpenCD (not a distro, just a load of programs), Dyne:bolic, and Feather 0.5.3. I also have mandrake, Fedora Core 2 & 3, and Suse 9.1. Haven't used many of them being a newb myself, but if you want a copy of any of these let me know.

Mark

OfflerCrocGod

This could be worth a try - Vector Linux I've never had to use it myself but it looks like it should do.

mneylon

What spec is the laptop?

Syth

MarkR wrote:

I have that DVD from linux format this month, has a load of the smaller distros on it. It has Knoppix 3.2, Slackware 10.0, Gentoo 2004.1, Arch Linux, TheOpenCD (not a distro, just a load of programs), Dyne:bolic, and Feather 0.5.3. I also have mandrake, Fedora Core 2 & 3, and Suse 9.1. Haven't used many of them being a newb myself, but if you want a copy of any of these let me know.

Mark

I don't think that's Linux Format. I have the Sept 04 issue and it had SuSe 9.1 and Slackware 10.0. There was another mag ther that had those distros, not sure which it was...

vigos

Hi SRoberts,

Where exactly do you find it slow? My guess is when you have started X server on the laptop. How is it when you are just using it from the console?

The link SkepticOne is good, make sure you have any processes you dont need stopped as well. There are also window managers which are less resource hungry than Gnome/KDE such as ICEWm or

Slackware also have an install for low memory PC's, and its usually best to use one of the older versions which maybe more suitable to the hardware you have at the moment.

vigos

sorry check this link as well http://www.volny.cz/basiclinux/oldpc/ I've noticed that there doesn't seem to be a link from the main basiclinux part

leeroybrown

A fully up to date linux distribution should run fine on an old laptop like yours so long as you use a light weight window manager / desktop environment and don't have many memory intensive things started. I use Fluxbox on my desktop for normal day to day usage. There are plenty of other lightweight window managers and even lightweight desktop environments that would run fine on your laptop.

The only caveat to that is that I've heard of people occasionally having trouble with some newer GUI installers (I think it was Fedora that was mentioned) as they check for a minimum amount of RAM before installing.

vigos

I think you can just do a text install instead of using the GUI based installer to get around this memory issue. At least this was possible in Red Hat not so sure about Fedora

sroberts82

Yeah, if i could a copy of that stuff on CD it would be excellent. The laptop is either 32 or 64 Mb RAM im not sure with about 2Gb. I installed Fedora and it takes about 15 minutes to start up and then any programs i run take 4 or 5 minutes to come up and respond.

Syth

MarkR wrote:

I have that DVD from linux format this month, has a load of the smaller distros on it. It has Knoppix 3.2, Slackware 10.0, Gentoo 2004.1, Arch Linux, TheOpenCD (not a distro, just a load of programs), Dyne:bolic, and Feather 0.5.3. I also have mandrake, Fedora Core 2 & 3, and Suse 9.1. Haven't used many of them being a newb myself, but if you want a copy of any of these let me know.

Mark

Actually it's Linux Magazine that has those distros. I bought it today.

Another thing you could try to give yourself a speed boost is to recompile stuff from scratch. You could start with the kernel, or try X (:)). That might get things going faster. Though it might take forever to compile stuff. I can also provide you with copies of those above aswell as SuSE 9.1 Personal (which was on Linux Format). I also have the 3 red hat 9 disks here aswell, if you're interested.

MarkR

That's the one! It has a distro called Feather 0.5.3. Designed to run off either a business card cd or a pen drive. Based on knopix seemingly. Says it comes with a wide selection of tools, utilites and applications to get just about any job done.