Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
Would like to be able to do:
very basic web surfing listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or even 2007 or 2010
a notepad
Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
> Would like to be able to do:
> very basic web surfing
> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or even 2007 or 2010
> a notepad
> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> tanx
What use would you be making of it?
I haven't used a 400 MHz machine but a 700 MHz
Coppermine Pentium with 384 MiB of installed RAM.
What graphics card does the machine have?
With the above came a ATI video card with 8 MiB
and I managed to install Mandriva 2009. I had some
problems but on reflection that this had been an XP
machine, I reduced the Virtual Desktops to one and
while slow it worked very well.
This was a laptop bought to replace a tower
that bombed an Dell Inspiron 4000 so the ram was expensive
and the video could not be improved.
On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:46:41 -0800, srojasramirez wrote:
> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC AMD K6-2
> @400 Mhz
> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well It's not my main PC, would
> be nice to revive it.
> Would like to be able to do:
> very basic web surfing
> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk) Basic not
> complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or
> even 2007 or 2010 a notepad
> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> tanx
You would probably be well advised to try a distribution designed for 'lighter' hardware. Puppy, DamnSmall, vector come to mind. A couple of years ago I installed elive on a P4 with 128mb. It ran fine although a little slow, as one would expect. You could also try a Debian install with lxde or xfce - I'd probably install the net install without any GUI and then add what I needed.
srojasrami...@yahoo.com.mx wrote:
> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
If it locks up hard, it is probably a hardware problem. You might have to fix that first.
> Would like to be able to do:
> very basic web surfing
> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or even 2007 or 2010
> a notepad
> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> tanx
Yes. I can recommend(=I tried) debian with IceWM and XFE. It will be slower than winME, and probably as unstable as your current OS, if your hardware is broken. Also, you are likely to lose 3D capability (if you had any in the first place...). And Firefox/Iceape will just _crawl_ along.. not sure if there's a decent(graphical) alternative. If you can, avoid X altogether.
> On Sun, 18 Nov 2012 15:46:41 -0800, srojasramirez wrote:
>> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC AMD K6-2
>> @400 Mhz
>> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
>> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well It's not my main PC, would
>> be nice to revive it.
>> Would like to be able to do:
>> very basic web surfing
>> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk) Basic not
>> complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or
>> even 2007 or 2010 a notepad
>> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
>> tanx
> You would probably be well advised to try a distribution designed for
> 'lighter' hardware. Puppy, DamnSmall, vector come to mind. A couple of
> years ago I installed elive on a P4 with 128mb. It ran fine although a
> little slow, as one would expect. You could also try a Debian install
> with lxde or xfce - I'd probably install the net install without any GUI
> and then add what I needed.
Puppy is an excellent thin distribution that will do what you say you want.
Download several versions and see which one you like from the live CD.
Different versions have significantly different user interfaces.
I like the user interface choices they made in older versions like 4.3.1, but the
programs are much the same.
An overlooked feature of puppy is that it can remaster itself.
You can boot the live cd, configure it the way you want and save
all that back to the live CDRW. Slower to boot than from the HD,
but for casual web surfing, it works very well.
Adding ram is often useful...if you can do it for free.
> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
> Would like to be able to do:
> very basic web surfing
> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or even 2007 or 2010
> a notepad
> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> On 11/18/2012 06:46 PM, srojasrami...@yahoo.com.mx wrote:
>> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
>> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
>> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
>> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
>> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
>> Would like to be able to do:
>> very basic web surfing
>> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
>> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003
>> formats, or even 2007 or 2010
>> a notepad
>> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
I tried it because it claimed to access Ubuntu repositories.
Every installation I tried resulted in. "missing dependencies...good
luck finding/installing them...sorry for any inconvenience...".
And the user interface was seriously infected by
"SureItsPuppyButLetsChangeTheEntireLookAndFeelAndAppsAndUtilitiesAnd
DefaultsJustBecauseWeCan" disease.
As a distro, it's like many of the others. Use it if it floats your
boat.
As a Puppy, I consider it to be all forked up.
I went right back to Puppy 4.3.1. Much easier to use. Everything
I want is right on the desktop and it just configures itself.
> On 11/22/2012 6:11 AM, Norman Peelman wrote:
>> On 11/18/2012 06:46 PM, srojasrami...@yahoo.com.mx wrote:
>>> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
>>> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
>>> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
>>> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
>>> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
>>> Would like to be able to do:
>>> very basic web surfing
>>> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
>>> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003
>>> formats, or even 2007 or 2010
>>> a notepad
>>> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> I tried it because it claimed to access Ubuntu repositories.
> Every installation I tried resulted in. "missing dependencies...good
> luck finding/installing them...sorry for any inconvenience...".
> And the user interface was seriously infected by
> "SureItsPuppyButLetsChangeTheEntireLookAndFeelAndAppsAndUtilitiesAnd
> DefaultsJustBecauseWeCan" disease.
> As a distro, it's like many of the others. Use it if it floats your
> boat.
> As a Puppy, I consider it to be all forked up.
> I went right back to Puppy 4.3.1. Much easier to use. Everything
> I want is right on the desktop and it just configures itself.
Haven't checked that part out yet... if you remember some apps you were trying to install, let me know and i'll give it a shot.
-- Norman
Registered Linux user #461062
AMD64X2 6400+ Ubuntu 10.04 64bit
> On 11/22/2012 08:02 PM, mike wrote:
>> On 11/22/2012 6:11 AM, Norman Peelman wrote:
>>> On 11/18/2012 06:46 PM, srojasrami...@yahoo.com.mx wrote:
>>>> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
>>>> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
>>>> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
>>>> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
>>>> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
>>>> Would like to be able to do:
>>>> very basic web surfing
>>>> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
>>>> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003
>>>> formats, or even 2007 or 2010
>>>> a notepad
>>>> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
>>>> tanx
>>> I see you tried puppy, take a look at MacPUP - http://macpup.org
>> What was your experience with MacPup?
>> I tried it because it claimed to access Ubuntu repositories.
>> Every installation I tried resulted in. "missing dependencies...good
>> luck finding/installing them...sorry for any inconvenience...".
>> And the user interface was seriously infected by
>> "SureItsPuppyButLetsChangeTheEntireLookAndFeelAndAppsAndUtilitiesAnd
>> DefaultsJustBecauseWeCan" disease.
>> As a distro, it's like many of the others. Use it if it floats your
>> boat.
>> As a Puppy, I consider it to be all forked up.
>> I went right back to Puppy 4.3.1. Much easier to use. Everything
>> I want is right on the desktop and it just configures itself.
> Haven't checked that part out yet... if you remember some apps you were
> trying to install, let me know and i'll give it a shot.
Thanks, but if you peel one layer off the onion, there's another one
just below.
Don't remember the exact details, but the first things I always install
are VNC, Synergy(4+) and Gambas3. Puppy has been stripped to the point
that there are lots of missing dependencies. That's a good thing for its
intended purpose. For more general application, a link to a full repository
with a package manager that could also find and load missing
dependencies so that everything just worked would help.
That means something better than the current Ubuntu status.
I'm not trying to turn Puppy into a full distro. But even if you
only want one more thing, that one thing has to just work.
And everybody's one thing is different.
The standardization and compatibility have been hammered in the ubuntu newsgroup. NOT seems to be the objective.
srojasrami...@yahoo.com.mx wrote:
> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
> Would like to be able to do:
> very basic web surfing > listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003
> formats, or even 2007 or 2010 a notepad
> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> tanx
As I recall, the K6-2 lacked one hardware instruction needed to allow
it to run on i686-optimized code, and my perception is that a lot of
modern distros are optimized for 686 or better. I believe you will need
a distro built for a 586/486/386.
I can't really comment beyond Slackware (my distro of choice), which
comes with a 486-optimized kernel that should run on your system readily. I
run it on a P133, and even an old 486, but I never leave the command line
with them. 512M of RAM might be necessary for the internet these days,
but I'd give the current RAM a shot first, maybe add a big swap
partition, see if it is tolerable. A not-too-oldish nVidia video card in a
PCI might allow you to offload video decoding of, say, YouTube videos as
well. An old 8400 or something.
I believe some of the BSDs come 386-optimized as well. OpenBSD, FreeBSD,
NetBSD, or DragonflyBSD might be worth looking at, if you can't get no
Linux satisfaction.
> Hi, need recomendations to install linux on an old WinMe PC
> AMD K6-2 @400 Mhz
> right now has 192 MB RAM, but I could increase to 512
> ie 5 freezes a lot in winme, can't surf well
> It's not my main PC, would be nice to revive it.
> Would like to be able to do:
> very basic web surfing
> listening to web radio (npr.org, cbc.com, bbc, dw, nhk)
> Basic not complex spreadsheets, saving to excel format 97,2000 or 2003 formats, or even 2007 or 2010
> a notepad
> Have you ever had a similar machine running linux?
> tanx
You could try downloading latest Knoppix and burning a dvd on a newer
machine and then doing a hard disk install. Knoppix adapts itself to
different hardware with little fuss and feathers.
