Re: Old hardware
Jeffrey Froman
> Cyrix 166 MHz
> 16MB RAM
> 256 color video
> I think the HD is 2 GB.
>
> Icewm is my preferred window manager.
> Can I use Slackware 10 or should I get an older version?
I've installed Slackware 10 on a few different systems with similar specs,
and no problem. One big difference though: I never tried on anything less
than 32M of RAM, and I've never tried to run X on them. You probably won't
get much in the way of GUI performance even with something as light as
Icewm.
That said, I doubt that trying an older version will improve your chances of
running X on that box. My suggestion is to either get more RAM for it, or
skip X entirely. Or both.
Jeffrey
Wim
Cyrix 166 MHz
16MB RAM
256 color video
I think the HD is 2 GB.
Icewm is my preferred window manager.
Can I use Slackware 10 or should I get an older version?
--
Wim
Chris Newport
wrote:
A lightweight X such as fvwm will work, but you will be swapping.
I would suggest you try to up the memory to at least 32Mb.
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Conny
"Wim" <m...@privacy.net> skrev i meddelandet
news:pan.2004.11.29....@privacy.net...
Take a look at Vector Linux 4.3 ,333 mb iso at: www.vectorlinux.com
Based on Slackware 8.1
Mark Hill
Wim <m...@privacy.net> wrote:
> I would like to install Slackware with X on a old computer. The specs are:
> Cyrix 166 MHz
> 16MB RAM
> 256 color video
> I think the HD is 2 GB.
>
The system does seem to meet the mimumum requirements mentioned in the
Slackware-HOWTO (found on the CDs/mirrors), so there's a good chance of
getting Slackware 10 to run on it. I've no idea how it'll perform with X
etc. If the system has a non-ATAPI CDROM, you may want to check it's
supported.
--
Mark Hill
Wim
> That said, I doubt that trying an older version will improve your
> chances of running X on that box.
Why not? I would think that XFree86 3.3.6 (in Slackware 7.1) requires less
RAM than Xorg 6.7.0.
--
Wim
Fred Emmott
I'd recommend Slackware 10's Zipslack with the 4MB RAM patch.
--
Fred Emmott
(http://www.fredemmott.co.uk)
Jack McCue
> I would like to install Slackware with X on a old computer. The specs are:
>
> Icewm is my preferred window manager.
> Can I use Slackware 10 or should I get an older version?
As pointed out in another post, that meets the minumum
except for memory, which v10 says you need 32 no/X
and 128 w/X.
But that is plenty of room for Slackware 3.4, which
is what I used on a 486, 500meg, 16MB machine for
a while. I believe it is fine for up to ver 7.1,
but you should stay away from Gnome/KDE apps.
Jack
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Jeffrey Froman
> Why not? I would think that XFree86 3.3.6 (in Slackware 7.1) requires less
> RAM than Xorg 6.7.0.
hm, what makes you think so?
Jeffrey
Michael Black
So the poster can simply run Slackware 8.1 at the very least.
The small size of the ISO is merely that not everything in Slackware
is included in the distribution. I remember someone boasting about
Vector Linux, and then turning around and wondering where he could
get the "missing" programs. I took a look, and was surprised that
while it included bloated GUI-based software, it was missing fairly
common text-based programs, that would take up a lot less than what
was included.
I ran Slackware 7 on a 200MHz Pentium with a 2gig hard drive and 32megs
of memory. When I installed, the only thing I left out was things like
the Apache server, I just told it to leave off something, and it fit
fine in the 2gig drive. I think I had about 1gig left, even after allowcating
about 96megs of the drive to swap. For my own reasons, I stuck with
the console, firing up a GUI only when needed. I used KDE for much
of the 2.5 years I used that system, though towards the end I switched
to FVWM for the simple reason that I needed nothing more and it loaded
faster.
I stopped using that system because I was given a better system last
December. Otherwise, I was satisfied with it, though I suppose it
depends on what one is doing with the computer.
If there is too much on more recent Slackware versions, it really isn't
that difficult to leave stuff off. Leave off some of the obvious GUI
stuff, and it's fast cut down to size. The only advantage of Vector
is that someone has already done the pruning, and of course that's
also a disadvantage since they are choosing what they feel can be
left off.
Of course, unless the computer is a laptop, it should still be
easy to get more memory for it. I got that 200Mhz Pentium in mid-2001,
and a year later bought an early PowerMac because it had a ten dollar
price. Turned out to have 64meg of memory, so it went into Pentium.
It's gotten to the point where the computers found in the garbage are
recent enough that one can pull memory out out of them. I've picked
up a fair amount of memory that way. Gee, I've found computers
as good as that Pentium, some even better, in the garbage in the past
couple of years.
Michael
Greg Heilers
I have an old HP PentiumPro box, with a 200mhz cpu,
128mb RAM, and 2.6Gig HD. I have Slack 9.1 on it;
and it smokes...even KDE runs very well. So, I think
that the box you have, running something minimalistic
such as FluxBox, might still be very do-able.
--
Greg Heilers
Registered Linux user #328317 - Slackware 10.0
.....
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voters than any party I know of, outside the Socialists."
"I'm not a member of any organized political party, I'm a Democrat!"
--- Will Rogers
Wim
Thanks guys. I'm downloading the Slackware 7.1 iso and will try that.
--
Wim
Two Ravens
Good luck with Slackware 7.1, however if you would like an up-to-date
distribution which I believe, (can't be certain), has IceWM, and runs
on low resources/old machines, have a look at Vector Linux which is
based on Slackware and has mailing list support, (although asking
questions about a Slackware *based* distro on this NG is heavily
discouraged). See: http://www.vectorlinux.com/
--
Two Ravens
"...hit the squirrel..."
Conny
"Michael Black" <et...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> skrev i meddelandet
news:cogrl7$eob$1...@theodyn.ncf.ca...
You can always get 'slapt-get' and pint the packages to slackware-8.1.
I agree about installing Slackware 10.0, I did it on my old laptop with 32
mb memory but left out KDE. Run fine.
Jack
environment like XFCE. I've installed Slackware10 on a school machine
with lower specs, and it was pretty fast (at least faster than windoze 95).
Menno Duursma
>> I would like to install Slackware with X on a old computer. The specs
>> are: Cyrix 166 MHz
>> 16MB RAM
>> 256 color video
>> I think the HD is 2 GB. [...]
> Thanks guys. I'm downloading the Slackware 7.1 iso and will try that.
Maybe have a look at DeLi (desktop light) Linux :
http://delilinux.berlios.de/
I have run this on P90 w/ 40MB desktop, and still use it on a P133mmx
laptop with 32MB. More up-to-date then Slackware 7.1 but packages from
that (such as FVWM2) work fine on it...
--
-Menno.
mj
> doesn't work out I'll try Slack7.1. Wish me luck ;-)
I wish you luck :-)
mj
Wim
Thanks. The PC will be brought here tomorrow. I've pulled some RAM from
another old PC and hope that will fit. I'll first try Slack10 and if it
doesn't work out I'll try Slack7.1. Wish me luck ;-)
Wim
Henrik Carlqvist
> another old PC and hope that will fit. I'll first try Slack10 and if it
> doesn't work out I'll try Slack7.1. Wish me luck ;-)
If Slack 7.1 is to heavy for the PC I have an old 486 with only 16 MB
which is running Slackware 3.1. As you can see from top below the RAM is
enough for only X, fvwm and an xterm:
-8<-------------------------------------------------------
hydran:~> top
9:54pm up 402 days, 3:42, 4 users, load average: 0.34, 0.15, 0.05
43 processes: 40 sleeping, 3 running, 0 zombie, 0 stopped
CPU states: 19.3% user, 26.0% system, 0.0% nice, 54.8% idle
Mem: 15084K av, 14828K used, 256K free, 13960K shrd, 2976K buff
Swap: 66492K av, 1500K used, 64992K free 4740K cached
PID USER PRI NI SIZE RES SHRD STAT %CPU %MEM TIME COMMAND
18825 henca 10 0 860 456 324 S 36.5 3.0 0:01 top
18823 henca 16 0 860 460 328 R 6.8 3.0 0:04 top
18782 root 1 0 3992 2380 1240 S 0.7 15.7 0:05 X :0
18795 root 1 0 3276 1540 1236 S 0.7 10.2 0:00 color_xterm -ls -sb
18810 root 0 0 764 332 272 R 0.5 2.2 0:00 in.rlogind
1 root 0 0 776 200 184 S 0.0 1.3 0:13 init [3]
2 root 0 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 kflushd
3 root -12 -12 0 0 0 SW< 0.0 0.0 0:03 kswapd
4 root 0 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 nfsiod
5 root 0 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 nfsiod
6 root 0 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 nfsiod
7 root 0 0 0 0 0 SW 0.0 0.0 0:00 nfsiod
31034 root 0 0 768 164 164 S 0.0 1.0 0:00 agetty
15187 root 0 0 768 132 132 S 0.0 0.8 0:00 agetty
60 root 0 0 772 224 180 S 0.0 1.4 4:57 /usr/sbin/crond -l10
74 root 0 0 784 196 156 S 0.0 1.2 8:50 /usr/sbin/syslogd
13 root 0 0 756 104 92 S 0.0 0.6 1:00 update (bdflush)
hydran:~>
-8<-------------------------------------------------------
However, running things like the old Netscape that machine has makes it
less useful. If you want to run X only to have it as an X terminal running
applications on other machines it is probably sufficient, but I wouldn't
want to do any serious work on this machine. Forget about running
OpenOffice on the local CPU :-)
regards Henrik
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bgeer
>> I would like to install Slackware with X on a old computer. The specs
>> are: Cyrix 166 MHz
>> 16MB RAM
>> 256 color video
>> I think the HD is 2 GB.
>>
>> Icewm is my preferred window manager. Can I use Slackware 10 or should I
>> get an older version?
I installed Slack 9.0 on a 6x86-233 with 64MB & 2 nic's for my
firewall, then upgraded the kernel to 2.4.25. I don't run X on it.
It doesn't add any measurable time to my ping times.
Depending on your video card & choice of applications, it could turn
out a nice little system. I'd highly recommend finding more RAM if
you want to run Firefox on it, tho.
I recently installed Slack 9.1 & Samba on a Pentium Pro with 96MB ram,
again without X, & turned it into a small office server for a few
Winblows machines. There's no perceptible difference between
accessing files locally or on the server.
Finally, I installed Slack 9.1 on a Gateway Profile with K6-400, 256MB
RAM, ATI Rage Pro video, & a DVD reader. Once the programs like X &
Firefox start up [it has a 4200rpm drive] it works quite well for
surfin' the net etc. Unfortunately, CPU doesn't have enough "ummmph"
for playing DVDs, which is what I really wanted to use it for.
Apparently the Rage (Mach64?) X driver doesn't implement "Motion
Video", nor could I find support for the built-in DVD Decoder card.
What's worse, Gateway doesn't support Win2000 on it, & even
reinstalling Win98 & downloaded Gateway drivers didn't work. It came
to me without the original Win98 disk, so I guess I'm stuck with jerky
movie playing...:-)
Old hardware is great for *some* applications...
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Henrik Carlqvist
before sending it...
I will make a new try:
regards Henrik
Joost Kremers
> Sorry about that awful indentation, pan did something stupid to my post
> before sending it...
or when you read it, because the one you posted before looks fine to me.
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Life has its moments
Henrik Carlqvist
> Henrik Carlqvist <Henrik.C...@deadspam.com> writes:
>> pan did something stupid to my post before sending it...
>
> or when you read it, because the one you posted before looks fine to me.
That was indeed the case. My last post looked just as bad. Now I went to
the view menu of pane and unchecked "Wrap article body" and checked "Use
monospace font...". Then things started looking as they were supposed to
do.