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Harry Mangurian Joined: Feb 06, 2009 Posts: 1 Other Topics	Posted Feb 06, 2009 at 4:36:17 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop I have an old Toshiba running Windows ME. I want to trash the ME and install Linux with a gui. I would be happy just to surf and do email. - 128 meg ram - 5 Gig hard drive - can't boot from a CD Is there a distro that fits the above requirements? Many thanks,
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Reed Joined Feb 07, 2008 Posts: 758 Other Topics	Posted: Feb 06, 2009 4:43:02 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop You can use unetbootin to install without a CD. http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ As for distros, I would recommend Puppy Linux. http://www.puppylinux.org/ Or Antix. http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page
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Joined Jul 26, 2008 Posts: 703 Location: Other Topics	Posted: Feb 06, 2009 6:14:05 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop I agree with Reed on this one. I run Puppy and Antix on 128 mb, 500 mhz laptop and it's speedy. Wireless works well with a DLink WNA 1330 PCMCIA Cardbus with Atheros Chipset. If you bump up the ram up to 256 mb, Xubuntu will run with those specs also. I've done it so I know.
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Deb_user2000 Joined Feb 09, 2009 Posts: 17 Location:Washington Other Topics	Posted: Feb 09, 2009 5:04:08 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop I run debian lenny with gnome-core/openbox on a 333mhz/64 meg ram laptop. It does well until I start loading up many tabs in iceweasel, then I see it start slowing down. edit- using rt2500 driver for wifi access. [Modified by: Deb_user2000 on February 09, 2009 05:05 PM]
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Benny Joined Jan 15, 2009 Posts: 4 Other Topics	Posted: Feb 09, 2009 7:10:16 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop Well try Crunchbang linux take a look !
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Cris Molina Joined Feb 11, 2009 Posts: 3 Other Topics	Posted: Feb 11, 2009 7:34:11 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop You can also try PC/OS OpenDesktop if you can upgrade your memory. I used it on a 500mhz PC with 192 mb of RAM and it worked well. http://www.pc-os.org
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Rubberman Joined Jul 30, 2007 Posts: 944 Location:40 miles west of Chicago Other Topics	Posted: Feb 13, 2009 4:44:09 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop Another thing is that a lot of older systems that couldn't boot from CD also cannot boot from USB. However, if you can access the manufacturer's web site you might be able to get a BIOS update that will allow you to boot from CD and/or USB. I had to do that a few years ago with an older Micron PC so we could boot from CD. Sometimes real fast is almost as good as real time. Remember, Google is your friend!
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tmshih Joined Feb 13, 2009 Posts: 3 Other Topics	Posted: Feb 13, 2009 10:22:35 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop One way to install systems to old laptops with broken CD drives that are unable to boot from USB is to remove your hard drive from the laptop and plug it into a desktop system using a 2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter (costs about $7){you may even need an additional sata to ide adapter if the desktop is new}. The safe way to do this is to disconnect the desktop hard drive so when you boot the installation CD there's no chance of writing the system to that drive by mistake. I've done this a few times and had it work well. Sometimes the GRUB bootloader will set the hardware code to something other than (0,0) because of the way you have the adapters hooked into the desktop. Just be sure to check the /boot/grub/menu.1st file and make sure everything is set for (0,0) before you reinstall the laptop drive.
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Rubberman Joined Jul 30, 2007 Posts: 944 Location:40 miles west of Chicago Other Topics	Posted: Feb 14, 2009 4:14:35 AM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop [quote=tmshih]One way to install systems to old laptops with broken CD drives that are unable to boot from USB is to remove your hard drive from the laptop and plug it into a desktop system using a 2.5 to 3.5 ide adapter (costs about $7){you may even need an additional sata to ide adapter if the desktop is new}...[/quote] While this approach will work (most of the time), it should be avoided if the user is uncomfortable at all with disassembling their system(s). Some are not manufactured to be easy to take apart to remove the boot drive, even for experienced technicians. Sometimes real fast is almost as good as real time. Remember, Google is your friend!
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tmshih Joined Feb 13, 2009 Posts: 3 Other Topics	Posted: Feb 14, 2009 12:37:38 PM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop One method I've always wanted to try (but never got around to figuring out) is to use network booting to install a system. Does anybody know how to setup a desktop system to allow a laptop to do an installation through a PXE network boot? The last time I looked into this it seemed you have to setup a full blown server which seemed like more trouble than it was worth, but I'm hoping somebody will come up with a simple tool like unetbootin to enable this.
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Darksideforge Joined Feb 16, 2009 Posts: 3 Other Topics	Posted: Feb 16, 2009 6:36:36 AM Subject: looking for distro for my old laptop [quote=Harry Mangurian]I have an old Toshiba running Windows ME. I want to trash the ME and install Linux with a gui. I would be happy just to surf and do email. - 128 meg ram - 5 Gig hard drive - can't boot from a CD Is there a distro that fits the above requirements? Many thanks,[/quote] You say you can't boot from a CD, but you didn't specify whether that was a BIOS issue or a broken optical drive issue...? Zenwalk (http://www.zenwalk.com) will let you load first and install second, but you're going to be pushing it trying to run the X platform GUI with only 128Mb. Fluxbox is great for ultralight systems, but I don't know if there's an alternative install. Fluxbox.org might be worth checking out for you.
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