Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

[c_hegge]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Nice. Are those polies only 330uF? I'm surprised it works with them that low. I wouldn't normally go any lower than 820uF there. If it works, then it should be fine.

[Pentium4]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer


Loving the suggestions, thanks guys. But first things first, recapping the stuff As you can see, the caps are definitely bulged. Here's the crazy thing though. There were a total of 12 nichicon HM caps, 9 of them were 2200uF 6.3V, 2 were 1000uF 16V (on VRM high), and one 1800uF 16V (on VRM high). The remaining black nichicon cap left unchanged is nichicon HD. Every single 2200uF cap was bad. Their ESR ranged from 0.08-0.12 but all of them read over 6,000uF ranging from 6,076uF-6676uF. Seems typical of suspect HM caps. But the VRM high caps were fine, even being so close to the heat sink. The 1000uF caps were within 5% spec on capacitance and the 1800uF was within 15% spec on capacitance. Replaced 9/12 with polymers. It looks good now Interesting, the board was made by Foxconn but the VRM daughterboard was made by Delta. Pretty cool. PSU was made by Delta, more pics to come.

I also got rid of the shitty bubble-gum thermal paste on the CPU and NB heatsink.

So I understand that this computer is obviously lacking in horsepower, but how much better do you think it will be with all fresh, in spec caps now? I also found a 512MB PC133 Patriot RAM stick. I got lucky that it worked, because this mobo will only accept low density RAM modules. I may put a heatsink on the SB chip just for the hell of it

Ouch, this thing was made on 09/11/01

[ivtec]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

If you run

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

on your 7.0 install, it will automatically update everything so that it is equivalent to a 7.7 ISO image.

If you want a fresh install, the 7.7 server install is at

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.7.0/i386/iso-cd/

Get

debian-7.7.0-i386-netinst.iso

which is around 277MB.

In the install process, it will let you select a desktop environment. Uncheck that and the other selection so that only the server basic tools is checked. Right now, I can't remember the exact prompts, but it should be obvious.

PS. I ran the install 5 or 6 times before I got "comfortable" with everything.

Thanks retired caps; that's was the exact way i installed Debian Wheezy 7.0
my problem is that i can't install Ubuntu restricted-extras,that contains the flash player and other good stuff,i tried to install flash player by itself but no avail,
it seems to me one has to pay flash player to be installed in Debian wheezy.

I'm going to upgrade as you say and hope i can install flash player, if not i'll keep xubuntu 14.04, that's not a bad distro and has everything you need .
but Debian is lighter.

[stj]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

VECTOR will give you that.
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

but you dont need a "light" version, your hardware is half-decent.
and dont be fooled by the ram, Linux does not have "free" ram, it allocates the ram for buffers for later use.
true it would run better with a bit more, but it's only going to be a problem with some installers that decompress a livedisk to ram first.

[goodpsusearch]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

That's why Linux sucks. They can't even make an ultra lightweight version that works "out of the box" just like Windows XP.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Well i tried also to install google chrome in Debian Wheezy7.0 and i couldn't install it either
where Have got the Debian 7.7 ISO ?

If you run

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

on your 7.0 install, it will automatically update everything so that it is equivalent to a 7.7 ISO image.

If you want a fresh install, the 7.7 server install is at

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/7.7.0/i386/iso-cd/

Get

debian-7.7.0-i386-netinst.iso

which is around 277MB.

In the install process, it will let you select a desktop environment. Uncheck that and the other selection so that only the server basic tools is checked. Right now, I can't remember the exact prompts, but it should be obvious.

PS. I ran the install 5 or 6 times before I got "comfortable" with everything.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Well i tried also to install google chrome in Debian Wheezy7.0 and i couldn't install it either
where Have got the Debian 7.7 ISO ?

Here is how I get it installed.

Download the google 32 bit .deb from

https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/browser/

Then run bring up a terminal window and type

cd (change directory to where ever you downloaded the google .deb file)
sudo dpkg -i google-chrome-stable_39.0.2171.71-1_i386.deb
sudo apt-get -f install

The second command will likely fail because google needs a bunch of library files.
The third command tells debian to resolve those errors above.

After the third command, it should show up in your menu and chrome should work fine.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

That's more than 32-bit XP.

Everything I tried was 32 bit version.

The last time I installed XP with SP3 and nothing else, I think XP consumed around 100MB DRAM after bootup?

[ivtec]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Yes. I use Google Chrome. The latest stable version (39.0.2171.71) works fine with Debian 7.7 on youtube.com.

I haven't tried Firefox, Chromium or Iceweasel with flash though. I find it more convenient when Flash is bundled into Chrome and I don't have to worry about compatibility, security patches, etc.

Well i tried also to install google chrome in Debian Wheezy7.0 and i couldn't install it either
where Have got the Debian 7.7 ISO ?

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

I tried Linux Mint MATE which uses about 250MB DRAM after bootup and Linux Mint XCFE uses about 200MB DRAM after bootup.

Sounds right for 64-bit.

If 32-bit, someone needs to be shot!!

[RJARRRPCGP]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

By default it uses about 150MB DRAM.

That's more than 32-bit XP.
That's why XP isn't dead yet, at least unofficially.

[stj]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

http://www.opensuse.org/en/

[cheapie]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

I'd suggest Debian + fluxbox. It's what I use here, and it's even more lightweight than LXDE (and easier to use if you ask me). In fact, it runs okay (although no graphical web browsers do) on a 120 MHz Pentium with 136 MB of RAM.

[ratdude747]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

FYI (in case the other posts didn't make this clear) the 5 zilion CD/DVD thing is only if you want every single package in the "catalog" on disk (offline install). If you're hooked to the internet, all you need is the smallest netinstall image, which will pull everything you need and install from a server somewhere.

I would have suggested arch but since you are asking, then you're probably not in the know enough to do an arch install (it's kinda technical, but easier than say slackware or the like). But once you get the hang of arch, you never go back (honestly it runs worlds better than any of the "mainstream" distro's).

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

zornOS or suse or mint.

I have tried Linux Mint and it is super user newbie friendly and works fine. However, it is based on Ubuntu and Ubuntu is based on Debian. That implies more DRAM usage.

I tried Linux Mint MATE which uses about 250MB DRAM after bootup and Linux Mint XCFE uses about 200MB DRAM after bootup.

I tried Zorin 9 Lite and it uses about 144MB DRAM after bootup (about the same as Lubuntu).

The only big name distro I haven't tried is SUSE. The 4.4GB ISO download doesn't encourage me to try it with my ISP bandwidth caps and punitive charge$$ for anything over my limit.

Over the summer, I think I tried every lightweight DRAM advertised OS and nothing came close to rolling your own Debian 7.7 + xorg + lxde.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

retiredcaps; can you get Flash player running with Debian wheezy 7.7?

Yes. I use Google Chrome. The latest stable version (39.0.2171.71) works fine with Debian 7.7 on youtube.com.

I haven't tried Firefox, Chromium or Iceweasel with flash though. I find it more convenient when Flash is bundled into Chrome and I don't have to worry about compatibility, security patches, etc.

[ivtec]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

Try my Debian 7.7 suggestion with xorg + lxde. It uses less than 50MB DRAM after bootup on your typical P4. That leaves plenty of DRAM for applications, linux disk cache, etc.

retiredcaps; can you get Flash player running with Debian wheezy 7.7?
i tried Debian Wheezy 7. and i never could get flash player.

[retiredcaps]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

HardInfo sows about 350MB used immediately after booting. Maybe that isn't accurate. What do you use to measure RAM usage?

Let me be clear about the Debian 7.7 + xorg + lxde build that uses about 50MB DRAM after bootup.

By following the instructions in that l3net blog, you are downloading and installing the server version of Debian 7.7 (about 256MB iso download image), manually adding xorg (display driver - about a 60MB download via apt-get install xorg) and then finally lxde (desktop environment - about 170MB download via apt-get install lxde). These are three manual steps that you must do. So the total download is around 500MB from the Internet.

Debian has a pre-configured lxde environment setup for those that don't want to manually do the steps above. However, it includes a few more daemons and startup applications which results in more DRAM usage after bootup. My notes say it uses about 100MB DRAM after bootup.

Obviously, you can remove some of the default daemons and startup applications to lower DRAM usage, but I could not get the pre-configured version to equal that of the 3 step manual process.

Since my P4 computers have 512MB DRAM, I'm trying to save every MB of memory so I use the manual 3 step configuration so I have the bare minimum, but fully usable GUI Windows XP like interface with lxde. And it boots fast.

The more I can keep the OS and its applications running in DRAM (fast) and avoid disk swapping (slow), the P4 systems are completely usable for 95% of the stuff today.

The pre-configured lxde can be downloaded from (ISO is around 968MB) for those who don't want to do the 3 step process.

http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/...de-desktop.iso

I use "free -m" to show the DRAM usage. By default, linux uses any free memory has a disk cache. So the 350MB DRAM you saw is probably 150MB DRAM for Lubuntu and close to 200MB DRAM disk cached information/files. Linux automatically will purge stuff from the disk cache as needed.

See

http://www.linuxatemyram.com/

PS. I don't have time today, but I will try to get some screenshots showing the 50MB DRAM usage on bootup as proof.

For a web only surfing duo-core CPU machine (circa 2008), I think I can get Debian 7.7 + lxde to boot in 15 seconds or less to a fully working and ready to go environment with a traditional rotating spinning media hard drive. No need for SSD with the right OS.

[goontron]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

zornOS or suse or mint.

[Th3_uN1Qu3]

Re: Need light Linux OS for OLD computer

My vote goes for Puppy as well. It's *almost* as good as XP while keeping a light footprint.

If you want something that really emulates the XP style, you can try Zorin OS. It's based on Ubuntu and very user-friendly. Even more friendly than Ubuntu.