linux distro for old laptop

Alternatives http://linux.softpedia.com/get/System/Operating-Systems/Linux-Distributions/Ubuntu-Lite-16485.shtml http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page http://www.nimblex.net/

Hallo You could try Fat free Puppy, see www.ttuuxxx.com. This is a distro I use on a Pentium 2 laptop with only 96 mb ram, and it runs o.k. Succes, Emile

TuxMobil has a lot of notes for people's observations and experiences installing to specific laptops. Here's a link to a Vector Linux installation to a 7000CT http://web.archive.org/web/20041204103441/http://webfools.net/filippo/Tosh-Protege-7000ct-VectorLinux3.2-March03.txt

Ubuntu 8.10 is definitely out without at least 512 megs of RAM; I love my Zenwalk and it will do well for you with a minimal install, but thobbs is probably giving you the best advice with the fluxbox link.

I am running DreamLinux 3.5 RC 4 on two older laptops. One is a Dell CPx (P3 500 MHz) with 128 MB RAM and the other is a Dell C600 (P3 700MHz) with 512 MB RAM. They are both using a Broadcom Wireless card (which other distro's have choke on by default). I have tried Ubuntu variants on these but they run slower and have some oddities with the graphics (a vertical blip on the right side of the screen). I would highly recommend downloading and trying it out. It is on a LiveCD (which does run slow), so you can try it out before installing... Here is the site: http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/

For very old laptop, suggest CDlinux ver 0.4.9, many old PC worked well with CDlinux, www.cdlinux.com

[quote=bks72]Hey gang-getting acclimated to linux now that my pc ate xp via me. Anyway-I have a Toshiba Portege 7000ct laptop and can't seem to get any distro's to install and work properly... I have successfully installed puppy and DSL-don't like either-too limited. The specs are 160MB RAM, 4GB HD, Neomagic graphics card, floppy drive, one usb drive-won't boot from, and NO CD-ROM drive. I need suggestions/..... I am a writer and only need to use it for writing/email/browsing,etc. I really like Ubuntu-derived distro's but can't get any to work right, ie-they either won't load all the way or they get "frozen". Please help! B[/quote] Hi, Here is a distro to consider, it is based on Mepis Linux which is based on Debian. One of the members of the Mepis community put it together and it is called AntiX and the latest version is v8. Here is a link that talks about AntiX http://www.mepis.org/node/14212 and here is a short excerpt from that page. "About Anti Anti is a Brit living and working for the last 19 years as a teacher in Thessaloniki the second largest city in Greece. AntiX is remastered from MEPIS to give something back to the community and to work on boxes with 128MB RAM (It does work with 64MB RAM + 128MB swap). The name alludes to the ideas that it is supposed to be like antics (fun) and it is for antiques (ie older boxes). Plus anti is the nickname of the creator and maintainer of AntiX." If you like Ubuntu you can get one of their alternate install CD's and I think that you can install it without having any GUI installed. You could then later download one of the light weight window Managers, there are several, some with more features than others that you would probably find one that you would like. It is the GUI that is being used that requires the system resources, ie amount of memory as well as processor speed. To name a few of the light weight window managers there is, Black Box, Flux Box (That you would probably like better) that is derived from Black Box, Window Maker, and the Enlightenment WM, here is a link from Linux.org that has a fairly complete listing of the different desktops and window managers with links to their websites. http://www.linux.org/apps/all/GUI/Window_Managers.html Another distro you may want to check out is Dream Linux, http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/index.html it also is based upon Debian and you have the option of installing either Gnome or XFCE desktops. XFCE it is a really polished distro and I think you would really like it. I just Googled XFce and found this page from XFce's website about system requirements to run their desktop environment http://wiki.xfce.org/minimum_requirements In my opinion I think you would be happier using XFce than the other lightweight window managers at least until you get more used to Linux. XFce is a complete desktop enviorment and is very similar to Gnome and KDE, it just requires far fewer system resources. If you try out Dream Linux (I would highly recommend it) I would wait a couple of days to download it as they have a notice on their web site about the release of v 3.5 on the 28th of this month. I too am still shopping for a new distro and I will be downloading the new version when it is released. In the mean time there are a lot of tutorials that you could read. They have even made an easy to use tool to remaster the live CD if you should want to customize the live CD with the applications that are your favorites. If you are new to Linux you might want to do some Google searches about Linux window managers and the basic gui structure of a Linux system. That is one of the things that to me was confusing when I first tried Linux. If you go with just a window manager then you need to decide on the other components that you need for a complete desktop environment. At the very least after choosing the window manager you need to pick a file manager but also you will need to decide on what media players to use. That is why so many just automaticly use Gnome, KDE, and XFce because all this work has been done for them. Good luck to you, Robert

I have a Old IBM laptop P3 700MHz, 256 MB RAM. All I need is wireless to use it for email/browsing/Skype.