Can anyone recommend an OS? [Archive]

Telephoneman

10/12/2007, 10:53

I've got an old Toshiba Libretto CT110 that I'd like to use for e-mail when I'm travelling about. It's very small and light and has a 4GB hard drive and a PCMCIA wi-fi card but only a 32 MB memory. It currently has win 98SE on it.

I've never used linux (apart from on my Trixbox PBX) and was wondering if this would be a good opportunity to have a play. Basically I need to be able to access the web, pick up hotmail and pop3 mail and open excel files. Is there a suitable distro that anyone would recommend for a machine with such a small memory? Or should I stick with what I have?

smartybones

10/12/2007, 17:47

its always worth looking for an alternative to windows, and a linux distro of some sort proberbly would be better than sticking with 98... but check that there are linux drivers available for all the hardware you need...

but make sure you have plenty of time to learn the new os...i just installed a debian distro on one of my desktop pc's, it lasted about 3 hours before i put xp on.... didn't really have the time to leave the machine half crippled while learning all the command line crap that i long left behind after windows 3.11

corris

10/12/2007, 18:32

Hi Telephoneman

There are many linux flavours around at the moment, one or more might suit your purposes.

Many are free (just download and write the image to disk), and many will let you try it out first from a bootable "live" cd/dvd so you can suck and see without installing anything before you make a choice.

See here (http://distrowatch.com/) as it might help your research, and this article (http://www.linuxforums.org/desktop/a_linux_distribution_for_an_old_laptop.html) might help.

On a similar vein there are numerous linux help forums like this one here (http://adsl24.co.uk/forum/www.linuxforum.com/) and here (http://adsl24.co.uk/forum/www.linuxquestions.org/) as examples - and many of the linux distros run their own support as well.

Anyway, good luck

Cheers
corris

Gargoyle

10/12/2007, 20:32

James

10/12/2007, 21:30

And if you want the next best thing, install Ubuntu ;)

linker3000

10/12/2007, 21:39

..yep Ubuntu... you can run it as a live CD before installing to make sure it finds everything too.

Gargoyle

10/12/2007, 22:20

I don't think Ubuntu is a good choice for this low spec machine - 32 MB RAM isn't a lot to play with nowadays - the major Desktops- Gnome and KDE like rather more space. If he wants to try it, Xubuntu (http://www.xubuntu.org/) might be more of a possibility as it uses xfce.

I don't think the Ubuntu LiveCd will even run on 32MB RAM

Telephoneman

11/12/2007, 09:21

Xubuntu looks interesting. Couple of linux newbie questions - are programs like Open office compatible with all distros (and specifically this one)? I have a 3 Com PCMCIA wi-fi card in the machine, how hard do you think it will be to find a driver?

thraxas

11/12/2007, 10:47

OO.O works on all distros I have seen, so yes it will work on Xubuntu. As for the 3 Com card, t could depends on the model (or the chipset inside).

Oh from the xubuntu website

Minimum system requirements

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.

So I would look at Damn Small Linux instead, says it will happily run on a 486 with 16mb. Also take a look at puppy linux.

Telephoneman

11/12/2007, 16:56

I guess it would have been a good idea to read the minimum requirements properly before downloading the 500MB distro!

Dae

11/12/2007, 22:13

Something Debian based with a nice lightweight window manager such as IceWM or Fluxbox should do the trick,
Xfce might still be too much for that machine.

You could give Morphix (http://www.morphix.org/index.php) a go, its based on Knoppix and there are Live CD versions with Xfce (LightGUI) or IceWM installed.

I've had it running on some fairly low spec equipment in the past.

You can even use it to build a custom distro with only the modules loaded that you require.
Never got round to using it like that, but its an option. ;)

Gargoyle

11/12/2007, 23:43

Something Debian based with a nice lightweight window manager such as IceWM or Fluxbox should do the trick,

Which is exactly what DSL is :-)

Dae

12/12/2007, 00:36

Gargoyle

12/12/2007, 09:05

True. But I like Morphix :)

And its what I have experience of.

The thing that i liked most was that i could pull the hard drive from one machine ..
Put it in another .. And it would still boot fine

DSL may be the same?

"Horse's for Course's"

I've no idea what would happen - then again, I've done the same with a windows HDD as well on more than one occasions (on other occasions it doesn't want to know of course)

Horses in deed for course, which is why I stick to moslty Windows - it makes for an easy life.

Dae

13/12/2007, 17:55

@ Gargoyle

I've done the same with a windows HDD as well on more than one occasions (on other occasions it doesn't want to know of course)

What I meant was that I could take it out of one machine and put it in another with completely different hardware and still have it boot, due mostly to Knoppix's good on the fly hardware detection.

I'm pretty sure windows wouldn't like being moved to new hardware, without a fuss.

which is why I stick to moslty Windows - it makes for an easy life.

In the case of XP Pro, SP2 fully updated with a good anti-virus/firewall added and all the bloat removed, on reasonable spec equipment I would have to agree.

Vista however is a another story, I have it pre-installed on my new lappy ... and I have to say that i'm not that impressed with it.

Sure it looks nice, but it operates like a lazy dog on Valium :(

And it has an annoying habit other either refusing to update with my choice of firewall/anti-virus installed .. or much worse shutting them both down upon after a successful update!

@ Telephoneman

It will be interesting to find out what you get running on that Tosh Libretto .. its not the P75 one is it?
That would be some truly low-spec'd wonder :)

Gargoyle

13/12/2007, 21:34

@ Gargoyle

What I meant was that I could take it out of one machine and put it in another with completely different hardware and still have it boot, due mostly to Knoppix's good on the fly hardware detection.

I'm pretty sure windows wouldn't like being moved to new hardware, without a fuss.

It depends, a few times I've pulled a drive out of one machine and put it in another and all has been hunky dory - even with machines quite a few years ina ge difference - takes a while on first boot as it goes through at lot of hardware detection and driver installs but it was happy at the end. But I've also had it totally barf and refuse to boot properly a couple of times.

I think it's probably radically different mobos, or other core hardware it doesn't like it doesn't like - with totally different chips sets etc. I put the HDD drive from my mums AMD Athlon machine with a Via chipset onto one of my machinesP3 I think, with probably an Intel chipset. Was not happy

Not a recomended procedure though. :)

Anywa yeah, like to hear how you get on Telephone man

Cozworth806

19/12/2007, 09:03

I rather like Puppy or one of its derivatives.
The basic version is 98Mb but it will allow putting a swap file on the HD and will run pretty quick, also it will save the main image to the HD so boot up next time will be faster.
Its got the best wireless config of any distro I have used, as my Belkin PCI card in my desktop and my Dell 6400 Intel chip both connected without issue (shame the same couldn't be said for any other disk I tried)

Of course you could try and source some extra ram

Telephoneman

06/01/2008, 19:09

Quick update for everyone that was kind enough to reply. I haven't done anything with it yet as I was out of the country for quite a while and also I have a couple of concerns; The libretto (CT110, Dae) has a small furry button which acts as the pointer and I'm concerned that a driver may not be available; Also, it doesn't have an ethernet connector so if I can't get a driver for the 3com PCMCIA card I'll be adrift with no means to connect to t'internet on it.

Gargoyle

06/01/2008, 20:56

The libretto (CT110, Dae) has a small furry button which acts as the pointer and I'm concerned that a driver may not be available; Also, it doesn't have an ethernet connector so if I can't get a driver for the 3com PCMCIA card I'll be adrift with no means to connect to t'internet on it.

Well if you try DSL or Puppylinux for example, they will both run as liveCD's (hopefully, given your RAM) so you can try these things out .

Linux is pretty good with drivers for hardware nowadays on the whole nowadays anyway. Re the 3com card, if there isn't a Linux driver, there is also NDISwrapper (http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/joomla/), which is a route to using Windows drivers under Linux.

Telephoneman

07/01/2008, 11:23

OK, thanks Gargoyle. I'm going to be working away again for a week or so but I'll give it a go when I get back.

kenedmonds

10/01/2008, 09:45

I've tried to get to grips with various distros of Linux on a laptop over the last few years.

They all ran fine and detected all the hardware including the "button" mouse.

What they didn't do and I couldn't work out how to do, was use a wireless network card. I tried 3 or 4 different cards and, IIRC they were all detected but the drivers weren't built in.

Later distros may be better but may be too demanding for an elderly low spec machine.

I was using an IBM PIII 500 with 448 MB of memory. When I bought it 6 years ago it cost me £600 second-hand but with new ones now around the £300 mark you could pick one up for change out of 100 quid.

Worth a thought?

Telephoneman

10/01/2008, 15:52

I've got decent(ish) laptop already but it's quite heavy. I travel about a bit and thought that I might use the libretto as a convenient way to pick up e-mails etc since it's only just slightly bigger than a paperback book. I guess I was sort of inspired by the Asus Eee PC.

I'm away from home at the moment but before I set off I thought that I'd have a go at running the libretto with a live CD of Puppy. Because of the size of the libretto it doesn't have CD but I have an external PCMCIA drive. Booting it up with the CD drive connected and the CD in didn't work - it still booted W98. I thought that I might have to change the boot order in the bios but despite trying every F key during startup it didn't open the bios like I would have expected. I'm therefore scratching my head as to what to do next.

Gargoyle

10/01/2008, 23:50

I'm away from home at the moment but before I set off I thought that I'd have a go at running the libretto with a live CD of Puppy. Because of the size of the libretto it doesn't have CD but I have an external PCMCIA drive. Booting it up with the CD drive connected and the CD in didn't work - it still booted W98. I thought that I might have to change the boot order in the bios but despite trying every F key during startup it didn't open the bios like I would have expected. I'm therefore scratching my head as to what to do next.

Our friend Google says:

According to the Toshiba site (http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/cgi-bin/ToshibaCSG/faq.jsp?service=UK&FID=0000000401)

Boot the system up and hold down the‘Esc’ key, then press F1 when you get the check system message. You are then in the BIOS Setup and you can make your changes and save and exit by pressing the ‘End’ key.

There seems to be lots of links to people trying to get linux going on a Libretto.

Telephoneman

17/01/2008, 12:02

This doesn't seem to want to play. In the bios there's only 2 options to toggle between - boot floppy first or boot hard disk. However, it's too small to have a built in floppy so it uses a PCMCIA. I thought therefore that maybe if I changed to boot floppy but plugged in the CD it might boot from that. Unfortunately not.

Yinzog

25/03/2008, 21:26

if it were mine i would try tiny xp or tiny server2003,

or linux as suggested before

byles

13/04/2008, 18:47

Bit late for me to join in, but if you're still curious, I came across a linux distro called gOS (http://dev.thinkgos.com/) the other day.

The site is now plastered with "A Linux operating system designed for the 100,000,000 Myspace users", which it wasn't the other week! It's got all the links to Google apps, but I'm sure you could change them or add more. :)

To be honest, I've not had a proper play with it yet, so it might be rubish. I stuck it on a memory stick, which I can boot from when I fancy, but I haven't bothered yet. I suspect an older laptop wouldn't boot from a USB stick, but since you've only got a tiny HDD, maybe it's worth splashing out a few quid for a compact flash card and IDE adapter? :D

Hope this helps. :)

Edit: £2.56 for a 2.5 Inch Hard Disk Drive HD IDE to CF Compact Flash Adapter! (http://www.au-battery.com/25-inch-hard-disk-drive-hd-ide-to-cf-compact-flash-adapter-p-1567.html?currency=GBP)
I might by a few and start collecting old laptops!

Edit 2: D'oh! I just checked the requirements of gOS. Too high I'm afraid. :( I'll leave this post here anyway, it might be useful to somebody else.