Linux on a Pentium 3?

Discussion in 'Linux / Unix Discussion' started by Ginge2k7, Dec 4, 2007.

  1. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    I'm looking at maybe switching over to linux and was wondering what would be the best OS to install a P3 1Ghz with 192Mb of RAM?
    I've been looking on youtube at various options and although UBUNTU looks gorgeous i dont think my machine could handle it, although there seems to be vids on there to the contrary.
    Any ideas guys?
     
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  2. JohnBradbury

    JohnBradbury Kilobyte Poster

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    From what I've read [total beginner myself] you could try the following:

    Dam Small Linux
    Vector Linux
    Xubuntu - this is basically ubuntu with a less resource intense desktop environment called Xfce

    Minimum system requirements for Xubuntu:
    To run the Desktop CD (LiveCD + Install CD), you need 128 MB RAM to run or 192 MB RAM to install. The Alternate Install CD only requires you to have 64 MB RAM.

    To install Xubuntu, you need 1.5 GB of free space on your hard disk.
    Once installed, Xubuntu can run with 64 MB RAM, but it is strongly recommended to have at least 128 MB RAM.
     
  3. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    Thanks john
    so if i install linux will i need to partition my hard drive or just make the choice between running one or the other ? , as i have about 30% free on a 40gig hard drive, also is XUBUNTU easy to use for a linux noob?
    Basically I'm fed up with the point and click world of windows
     
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  4. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    If you can get a little more ram into that thing you can run it. Right now I have an old IBM E series server running a PIII with 640 megs of ram in it. It runs my DNS server, my Apache web server with 2 https and 1 http virtual servers, my DHCP server, and a MySQL database, SSH, and a VSFTPD ftp server.

    It runs a very light load as it's a lab machine and I don't run a gui on it. It is pretty responsive and normally has around 200 megs of free ram at point in time.

    If you're looking at running yours as a desktop with a full Gnome or KDE gui I'd recommend that you get it up to around 512 megs of ram.

    With the ram you have DSL would fly. It's made to be small and light though so drivers at a premium and so are applications. The gui is radically different than what you're used to in Windows too. To access all the menus you right click on the empty desktop. There are no Start, Applications, etc... buttons at the top or bottom of the screen. Application installation is also a lot different than what you've seen if you've watched John's Ubuntu videos. It's all point and click, but just really different than anything else I've seen. DSL has it's own file extensions for that too. The other thing with it is that you'll find the applications are older ones and they were chosen because they don't use many resources. So, they aren't what you're going to be used to as far as functionality is concerned.

    You can learn a lot about Linux from DSL, but it's going to be a rather steep learning curve.
     
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  5. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    Just thought I'd let you know I've gone for one of John's options, and downloading XUBUNTU as we speak, so I will post again if and when i get it up and running.
     
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  6. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    Post again about it even if you run into problems and we can help you work your way through them.
     
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  7. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    Ok i downloaded Xubuntu 6.06 and burnt it to cd but it didnt boot so now im in the process of getting the most recent release, Xubuntu 7.10 which downloaded quite quickly by torrent. Im going to try burning at a lower speed and I've also taken the precaution on md5sum checking it and it looks ok at the moment.
    I've added and extra hard drive from an even older pc and its only about 4Gb (yes that small) because i havent got that much space on my current hard drive and have no way of backing up my data on there eg no dvd/rw.
    Can i install Xubuntu to an empty drive (d:) and if i do can i still access my main drive (c:) from it? Put another way if i make what is now d: my boot device so Xubuntu boots all the time instead of Windows can i still access media files such as music, film etc on c: (my Windows drive).
     
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  8. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    A 4 gig drive will easily have enough room for Ubuntu. Yes, just make sure you install a program called ntfs-3g. It will allow you to mount, read, and write to your Windows drive.
     
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  9. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    Right, headache time. my 4 gig drive is refusing to be recognised after i installed Xubuntu. So after much tweaking with the bios and boot order of devices i give up.
    I have a 40gig as my main drive which windows is saying has 16gig free, yet when i try to partition it using the partitioner on Xubuntu it says i only have 8meg free? my windows drive has never been partitioned before and all i want to do is use the free space or slightly less and install linux for a dual boot.
    The minimum partition that Xubuntu wants to make is 21gig?
    Helpppppppppppppp!!!!!!!!!
     
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  10. MacAllan

    MacAllan Byte Poster

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    When you say you have 16GB free, do you mean free space on the drive, or free space on the NTFS partition that is holding your Windows install? It has to be as a separate partition if you want to install linux - you can't install it on the same partition as Windows. You may want to try linux out first on a LiveCD rather than actually installing it. Whilst most of the time it works fine, a linux install can render your windows setup inoperable - make sure EVERYTHING is backed up first before you start re-partitioning your drive and installing any flavour of linux.

    I run linux on a 800Mhz PC just fine - but it has plenty of RAM - it will crawl on less than 512MB
     
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  11. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    Mac the 16gig is on the NTFS partition and i cant do anything through diskmgmt.msc either. Anyway i might wait untill i can get a bigger hard drive that i can partition from scratch i just dont want to lose any of my files or windows for that matter.
    Other than that I can personally say from what I've tried of the live CD at the moment i think I'm going to be a convert very soon, I'm in love with it already !
     
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  12. ffreeloader

    ffreeloader Terabyte Poster

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    You would have to shrink your NTFS partion to get room to install Xubuntu. However, shrinking partions can get pretty scary if you have a lot of data you can't afford to lose. Most of the time it works, but when it doesn't, well, bye-bye data and it's reinstall time.
     
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  13. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    I now have Xubuntu 7.10 on my machine running from hard drive without problems (yet). I think it was something as simple as a missing jumper from the back of the drive (the 4gig)
    Any suggestions for must have apps?
    thanks for the help :)
     
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  14. tripwire45
    Honorary Member

    tripwire45 Zettabyte Poster

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  15. Jakamoko
    Honorary Member

    Jakamoko On the move again ...

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    Excellent and inspired thread, but might it not sit better on the Linux forum ?
     
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  16. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    I realise now that I should have posted on the linux forum, I'm a total noob when it comes to forums aswell so I'm learning new stuff all the time :)
    Anyway, I was up until the early hours last night "tweaking" :oops: Bye Bye Windows !
     
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  17. ally_uk

    ally_uk Nibble Poster

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    I'd go with Debian myself I'd run the netinstall

    and use the Aptitude Package manager to install XFCE and webmin hey we have a simple file server!
     
  18. Bluerinse
    Honorary Member

    Bluerinse Exabyte Poster

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    Thread moved to Linux / Unix Discussion 8)
     
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  19. Ginge2k7

    Ginge2k7 Bit Poster

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    It's been a while since I posted so just popped in to say hello and let you know how my new Linux experience is going!
    Well after a month of using Xubuntu 7.10, I have come to the conclusion that my trusty old pentium 3 desktop PC is far from the scrapheap. I invested in some more ram so I now have the maximum that my mobo takes which is 512Mb so it runs a bit smoother than what it would have.
    One thing that amazed me was the little to no "system hang" time after startup compared with waiting sometimes anything up to 20 mins on WinXP before i could do anything at all. Within 2 minutes of booting up linux i was able to open Firefox, load rhythmbox media player and log in to Messenger with aMSN!
    There seems to be a very steep learning curve invovled when you have no previous experience of a linuxOS, and one site i have found very helpfull is LinuxCommand.org, which has helped me learn the basics of the bash prompt.
    Installing new software from .tgz files is something i am still trying to get the hang of so at the moment, so I am sticking to only getting software that i really need and using Synaptic package manager to get it, which does all the untaring and installing for you.
    It is definately not the "all singing , all dancing" version of linux compared to its parent distro Ubuntu, but this was the reason I installed as it was released with people like me using low end PC's in mind.
    Short and sweet, but I thing someone elses literary skills do this topic more justice. Juice142 also has a thread on this topic, so i will leave it there for now.:D
     
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  20. The_Geek

    The_Geek Megabyte Poster

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    I have Kubuntu (only because I prefer KDE over Gnome) running on a PIII 1 ghz with 512 meg ram and it runs GREAT!!
     
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