In search of Light and small Linux for a old computers

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed May 14, 2008 2:02 pm

I am in progress of finding new small and fast distro's. After ubuntu became bloated it was no more option for me.

I am using 600 Mhz Slot A AMD Athlon with 128 MB PC-100 for one
800 Mhz Thunderbird with 256 mb PC-133 for second

and now I am experimenting Fluxbuntu with my 700 Celeron laptop with 512mb PC-100 So-Dimm.

I've heard DSL Damn Small Linux but I'ven't heard much experience of peoples. My friend gave me few Linuxes, including Wolvix Cub 1.1.0. and Wolvix hunter 1.0.5

Since I am building from old hardware these machines with limited amount of memory and small HDD's they should be relatively small and light Distro's

Any recomendations?

lm · Post by lm » Wed May 14, 2008 2:10 pm

In theory, the difference between linux distros is how typical maintenance is performed, like installing/upgrading programs.

So what exactly makes them so large? I don't really know, I have been using debian for eight years and with expert install, I get to start with a minimal system and only install the software that I actually am going to use.

Just pick any distro that actually lets you choose your software, and skip installing all the crap.

The question should rather be of finding smaller programs to perform the tasks that you need to do, any good distro should let you do that.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Wed May 14, 2008 2:16 pm

You might check out PuppyLinux as well.

thejamppa · Post by **thejamppa** » Wed May 14, 2008 2:52 pm

lm wrote:
So what exactly makes them so large? I don't really know, I have been using debian for eight years and with expert install, I get to start with a minimal system and only install the software that I actually am going to use.

The bloated became when my laptop took ages load Ubuntu 7.04 and when I tried to Install new 7.10 it said too little HDD space left. My lap top has 12 GB HDD parted in two 6GB partitions. One for Windows 2000 SP4 and One for Linux.

frostedflakes wrote:You might check out PuppyLinux as well.

Hmm, looks nice. Thanks for recomendation ^^

mr. poopyhead · Post by **mr. poopyhead** » Wed May 14, 2008 9:27 pm

if you want the user-friendliness of ubuntu, but on a tighter hardware budget, you can try xubuntu. it's basically the same as ubuntu, but using the less resource intensive desktop, Xfce....

i tried putting it on an old ultra portable laptop, but surprisingly, it actually ran slower than winxp... i dunno if there's something wrong with my h/w. can't hurt to give it a try though since you can just boot up with a live CD as a trial.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Thu May 15, 2008 11:59 am

You'll find Light in the East and may I suggest you try Slackware which can be pretty streamlined if you only install what you need. Don't expect fancy GUI-bloated installers though. DamnSmallLinux is a nice compact distro, and for a change of pace there is a "micro" version of FreeBSD. And IMHO, Ubuntu started bloated.

spungfoo · Post by **spungfoo** » Thu May 15, 2008 9:27 pm

Another option would be PCFluxboxOS. The control center (draktools) is very well implemented and hardware detection is great.

nick705 · Post by **nick705** » Thu May 15, 2008 11:46 pm

mr. poopyhead wrote: i tried putting it on an old ultra portable laptop, but surprisingly, it actually ran slower than winxp... i dunno if there's something wrong with my h/w. can't hurt to give it a try though since you can just boot up with a live CD as a trial.

I think this is one of the things that often puts beginners off Linux - they install it on old hardware, having been told it has miminal hardware requirements, whereas in reality most modern out-of-the-box distros are every bit as demanding as Windows. The resulting experience is, unsurprisingly, less than inspiring.

NyteOwl wrote:You'll find Light in the East and may I suggest you try Slackware which can be pretty streamlined if you only install what you need.

VectorLinux is a nice Slackware-based distro - it's built for speed on old systems, and it's claimed to be just about the fastest available outside of custom builds...

alecmg · Post by **alecmg** » Fri May 16, 2008 12:32 am

VectorLinux is a nice Slackware-based distro - it's built for speed on old systems, and it's claimed to be just about the fastest available outside of custom builds...

Second that. I use VL on my work laptop. It is 100% capable distro, without any cutbacks. The customized Xfce is very usable. And speed is great too. I have 512MB memory and 1.3 Pentium M

Cistron · Post by **Cistron** » Fri May 16, 2008 1:38 am

If you're eager you could try gentoo or Archlinux. I never managed to set them up properly, but if you manage there are perfectly adoptable to your resorces. Good luck

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:17 am

I've used Vector. Very nice. Not the lightest. Not my favorite. Try it and make up your own mind. Same with Wolvix.

Another good distro of similar size is the "AntiX" version of Mepis. Lightweight GUI built onto the solid kernel, utilities, and hardware detection of Mepis. Recommended.

Damn Small Linux is designed to be under 50 MB. They give up things to achieve that goal. Not the most inuitive. Higher learning curve. Best choice for really, really old hardware. Kind of a "love it or hate it" distro. Worth a try. You'll probably need to ask questions on their forum as their docs and wiki are lacking. If you like it, buy the book. (You'll thank me!)
http://books.google.com/books?id=AAZRAA ... nux&pgis=1
http://www.mypearsonstore.com/bookstore ... 0132338696

New distro called SliTaz shows an awful lot of promise. Read more in following article.

Excellent article -- "Top 5 Tiny Distros" at http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/26480

One author who has written wisely about small distros & older hardware is Caitlyn Martin. You might want to check out a couple of her articles. http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/2654

FWIW, I think Puppy is the best small distro. It has done a better job, IMHO, in managing the tradeoffs between size, usability, support of old hardware, and support of new hardware. The new 4.0 "Dingo" release is a huge advancement over previous versions. Good docs & helpful user community. Recommended.

http://www.junauza.com/2008/05/puppy-li ... d-new.html
http://puppylinux.org/wiki/archives/old ... umentation
http://www.puppylinux.com/blog/

Two caveats about Puppy: The overuse of the "cute" puppy metaphor gets to be a bit too much at times. User community is a bit too enthusiastic. Rabid??? (Sorry...

More seriously, Puppy blatantly violates the "principle of least privilege." You always run with root privileges. Not too bad if you're booting off a read-only media like a CD, DVD, or flash. Bad for an HD install. Long debated in the Puppy community and unlikely to change. Makes this long-time Linux/Unix user cringe. YMMV, but not a show-stopper.

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Fri May 16, 2008 3:37 am

Lots of short pieces about small distros & old hardware. Use the "Categories" menu on the right side. Incredibly prolific, but worth searching. E.g., http://www.insidesocal.com/click/linux/wolvix/
http://www.insidesocal.com/click/

alecmg · Post by **alecmg** » Fri May 16, 2008 5:57 am

In responce to "Vector is not very lightwieght", true... My setup uses 140MB ram after boot.
But there is a lighter version in beta, called (surprise) VL Light. Didn't try it, but I guess it is what it claims to be

DryFire · Post by **DryFire** » Sun May 18, 2008 12:49 am

Arch linux is also something to look into. It's essentially as light as you want it to be I guess. It is kind of a pain to configure and if you're not used to linux prepare to read a lot of documentation.

I don't know if processors that old fall under i686 or not.

NyteOwl · Post by **NyteOwl** » Sun May 18, 2008 10:24 am

I don't know if processors that old fall under i686 or not.

<chuckle>

They do. 586 is the original Pentium and K6 series. Anything above that is 686 starting at the Pentium Pro, Pentium II and K6-2.

I even have Slackware running on a 386/387 with 32MB of ram.

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Mon May 19, 2008 3:25 am

At 1.0, SliTaz was visibly based on JWM (Joe's Window Manager). The cooker has now a version where more components of a nicer desktop were added: LXDE.

I was always impressed by the interesting work of the SliTaz project. Iliked how small (tiny!) can be extremely well-done, I liked their documentation, I liked their package manager (now even graphical)....

One more time, small can be gorgeous.

http://beranger.org/index.php?page=diar ... -better-i-

Screenshot in cited article -- "Memory: 41 MB of 487 MB used"

I haven't used the distro since the 1.0 version that Ladislav Bodnar raved about in DistroWatch. http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue ... 31#feature

The new "Cooking" release looks very interesting. I'm going to have to try it out. News item --

18 May 2008 - Cooking 20080518 and LinuxDays.ch
SliTaz team is proud to announce the availability of a new Cooking LiveCD ISO image providing huge changes from the stable release. SliTaz now uses Openbox as it's default Window Manager, desktop icons let you launch your favorite applications and manage files and dbus and hal will automatically mount removable media such as USB keys or Hard disks. Packages can now be managed through the graphical Packages Manager Tazpkgbox and mountbox and netbox are now much more usable and complete. The LiveCD now offers:- lua, a desktop search engine with searchmonkey, system information with Hardinfo, task management with LXTasks and a password and clipboard manager. All the major packages have been updated; SliTaz now uses a new toolchain using the last glibc-2.7, GTK 2.12.9 and Firefox 3.0 RC1! You will now find 580 packages on the mirror including wireless support for the kernel and the necessary tools for a manual connection or via the SliTaz netbox. This new announced Cooking version can be downloaded from SliTaz mirror. Note: This version is going to be used at the LinuxDay.ch in Geneva Switzerland.

http://www.slitaz.org/en/

More info & reviews -- http://www.slitaz.org/en/about/

Doesn't have that new distro "feel." Seems like a very mature distro.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Mon May 19, 2008 10:51 am

thejamppa wrote:I am using 600 Mhz Slot A AMD Athlon with 128 MB PC-100 for one
800 Mhz Thunderbird with 256 mb PC-133 for second

and now I am experimenting Fluxbuntu with my 700 Celeron laptop with 512mb PC-100 So-Dimm.

With 128+ megs of RAM, you do not need to use a limited lightweight distribution like Damn Small or Puppy. You can use a "normal" distribution like Debian.

Personally, I use Debian 4.0 on pretty much all of my computers. This includes an old 300mhz laptop with 64megs of RAM, and an old 120mhz Pentium with 48megs of RAM. I just got my hands on a tiny Toshiba Libretto 70CT--a 120mhz Pentium with 32megs of RAM. I'm going to be putting Debian 4.0 on that one also. It'll be a lot of fun optimizing and slimming things down. I've learned a lot of tricks over the years.

For my computers with less than 192megs of RAM, I use the lightweight IceWM window manager rather than the heavyweight KDE desktop. I install it with "apt-get install icewm icewm-themes menu".

jwm is even lighter than icewm, but it has some functionality limitations. In particular, I use the "nm-applet" to handle roaming wireless connections on my laptops, and the system tray icon doesn't seem to work in jwm. It works fine in icewm.

Still, for that 32meg Libretto I may need to use jwm. RAM is definitely going to be tight!

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Tue May 20, 2008 4:13 am

IsaacKuo wrote:With 128+ megs of RAM, you do not need to use a limited lightweight distribution

True enough. However, the smaller the footprint, the less paging. Generally, old, slow hardware has poor memory bandwidth and slow disks. Minimizing working set & paging has a significant impact on performance. Running the distro entirely in RAM is a huge performance benefit.

I think it depends on the user's goal. If one is into hacking a command line distro, adding lightweight WM & apps, and tweaking, go with a mainline distro like Debian and have fun. (Lots of interesting Libretto tweaks documented on the web.)

If one is more into getting a workable distro with decent performance and a lower learning curve (less hacking), go with a smaller, more complete distro. Far less tweaking (and learning) required.

One of the nice things about Linux is that we have choices!

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Tue May 20, 2008 4:39 pm

600MHz isn't that low end really. I used VectorLinux 5.0.1/5.1.1 SOHO on a 900MHz 256MB T-Bird rig for years....in fact I'm still using 5.1.1 SOHO on my modern machines including this A64 3500+ rig I'm posting from. I guess you could say I like it.

Just built an additional, C2D rig. Just put a fresh Slackware12.1 install it, and going to give Arch a go. To be honest though, I'm really waiting for VectorLinux 5.9 SOHO.

That the moment, I got a C2D config coming in for server duty. Going to setup Linux on a Compaq Flash card for the OS. Using this guy FYI:
http://www.addonics.com/products/flash_ ... adsacf.asp

DrCR

_____________

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Wed May 21, 2008 3:03 am

DrCR wrote:I got a C2D config coming in for server duty. Going to setup Linux on a Compaq Flash card for the OS.

Interesting. Will you have a swap partition? If so, where -- CF or HD? Where will /var be mounted -- CF, HD, or ramdisk? How will you manage flash wear?

Small desktops distros like the Asus EEE PC, Damn Small Linux and Puppy seem like perfect candidates for Flash-based "disks," but a server will be more challenging.

http://www.linux.com/feature/114295
http://www.nslu2-linux.org/wiki/Info/RamHackU2
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os. ... ff18a269ac

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Thu May 22, 2008 11:46 am

You've probably heard of Journaling Flash File System (JFFS) and Yet Another Flash File System (YAFFS), but do you know what it means to have a file system that assumes an underlying flash device? This article introduces you to flash file systems for LinuxÂ®, explores how they care for their underlying consumable devices (flash parts) through wear leveling, and identifies the various flash file systems available along with their fundamental designs.
http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/linux ... ileSystems

DrCR · Post by **DrCR** » Sat May 24, 2008 2:12 am

Hey, thanks for the links dougz. Put them on my to read list for today.

My Plan B is just going with FreeNAS for what I need to do for the time being, but I'm going to, with the help of a coder friend, try to get a proper Linux server config with Debian (his preference, I'm a SWer myself). Not planning on a swap as I imaging the 4GB memory size should suffice. /var ... I have no idea, got to Google that one. I still have a lot to learn related to *nix, well, in general too.

The A-Data CF 266X 2GB I went with does mention supporting wear leveling, so that offers at least some peace of mind. To be honest though at $22 if it decides to die after a few years I'm relatively cool with that (shouldn't be a problem backing up the configs). Dying in <1year would be an annoyance though.

DrCR

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Sun May 25, 2008 4:49 pm

DrCR wrote:try to get a proper Linux server config with Debian (his preference, I'm a SWer myself). Not planning on a swap as I imaging the 4GB memory size should suffice.

Debian is an especially good choice if you can get some help getting it configured!

Swap should be unnecessary.

Lots of folks have worked out how to do Debian on flash properly. Google for ideas. This article looks good --

While plenty of people run systems from flash nowdays, most do not do it correctly. First of all, flash supports only a limited number of writes. If a device scribbles over it all the time like Linux does over ext3fs, the flash will run out its allowed writes in no time. Second, flash is slow. In fact it is excrutiatingly slow. In order to work around these issues Debian needs to be repackaged to the point where it can no longer be called Debian. It is something else which once upon a time was Debian.

Here is how:
...
Using this methodology it is possible to package a network-in-a-box with bind, ppp, openvpn, quagga, squid, iptables, telnet, ssh, ftp and most of other software necessary for a firewall/router in 50-60MB flash and 128MB of RAM using a more or less fully featured (networkwise) 2.6 kernel. Similarly, a full XTERM with X and fonts will fit in less than 128MB flash.
http://www.sigsegv.cx/diskless-3.html

More complicated than doing it on hard disk. If I was doing a system without HD, flash is a viable option. OTOH, if I was doing a server that would have HD for some server role(s), I'd skip the flash.

YMMV. Have fun!

Licaon · Post by **Licaon** » Mon May 26, 2008 9:54 am

Another Review: Lightweight Linux distributions

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Mon May 26, 2008 11:10 am

Licaon wrote:Another Review: Lightweight Linux distributions

Good article, although the author was not always specific about the versions tested.

Article reviewed Zenwalk 5.0. Might want to look at Zenwalk 5.2 Beta, as it is a significant update --
http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=04906
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=a ... beta&num=1

sonics · Post by **sonics** » Tue May 27, 2008 4:59 am

I must agree that puppy linux is the best candidate for a lightweight distro.
That it runs everything as root is a pro, since people changing on an old machine prolly have used windows 98 or something. So slightly less learning curve for them to get around with puppy.

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Tue May 27, 2008 5:30 am

I disagree. At this point, anyone using such an old computer is probably a hobbyist who likes "resurrecting" old hardware. I'm running full blown Debian 4.0 on my cute old Toshiba Libretto 70CT (Pentium 120mhz, 32megs of RAM).

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Wed May 28, 2008 3:51 pm

IsaacKuo wrote:I disagree. At this point, anyone using such an old computer is probably a hobbyist who likes "resurrecting" old hardware. I'm running full blown Debian 4.0 on my cute old Toshiba Libretto 70CT (Pentium 120mhz, 32megs of RAM).

Not everyone has your skills, Isaac! I'd even assert that not everyone wants to put a lot of effort into "resurrecting" old hardware. (What's easy for you is a lot of work for a newbie, due to learning curve.)

OTOH, there are user communities that will help folks get a tiny distro like Damn Small Linux or Puppy working on their Libretto or other antique. Not as neat a hack as starting with Debian, but accessible to someone with less expertise and/or time. Hacking a basic Debian for a tiny box assumes a bit more self-support ability, IMHO.

The Puppy, DSL... user communities are a tremendous asset for those who are learning. They even get former Windows users (Linux novices) up and running. Pretty impressive.

If someone can get useful work out of an old box with Puppy, DSL, or whatever -- I'm delighted for them. As their skills increase, should they be interested, they can undertake more difficult/rewarding installs. We all had to start somewhere.

My two computers are a 500 MHz PIII/384 MB and a 900 MHz Duron/512 MB. Love to "play" with Ubuntu & lots of other distros. Desperately need more CPU for multimedia...

IsaacKuo · Post by **IsaacKuo** » Wed May 28, 2008 4:54 pm

Reencoding videos is the key to play them smoothly on slower computers.

Up until a couple months ago, my only laptop was a 400mhz Pentium M Compaq with 192megs of RAM. I used mencoder to reencode videos to play smoothly (on trips, my more powerful desktop computers are unavailable).

Here's my script slowCode.sh
---------------------------------
#! /bin/bash
#
# reencodes a video so slower computers can play it

echo "---------------------------------------------"
echo "---$1----------------------"
echo "---$2----------------------"
echo "---------------------------------------------"
mencoder "$1" -o "/home/kuo/pan/convert/$2" -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=192 -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=777 -slang en -noembeddedfonts -noskip
---------------------------------

In order to reencode a bunch of videos, I wrote this script:

---------------------------------
#! /bin/bash
#
# recodeall.sh
#
# reencodes all videos so slower computers can play it

for filename in *.*
do
if [[ "mkv.MKV.avi.AVI.mp4.MP4" =~ "${filename##*.}" ]]; then
newf="${filename%.???}"
while [[ $newf =~ "\[.*\]" ]]; do
newf="${newf%%"["*}${newf#*"]"}"
done
while [[ $newf =~ "$.*$" ]]; do
newf="${newf%%"("*}${newf#*")"}"
done
newf=`echo "$newf"|tr -cd a-zA-Z0-9`
newf="$newf".avi
~/slowCode.sh "$filename" "$newf"
#echo $newf
fi
done
---------------------------------

dougz · Post by **dougz** » Thu May 29, 2008 2:56 am

IsaacKuo wrote:Reencoding videos is the key to play them smoothly on slower computers.

Thanks for the scripts. I've been reencoding some downloaded videos to make them usable. Your scripts make the process easier.

Adobe Flash 9 is a bit addictive. Unfortunately, it appears to have upped the CPU requirements in comparison to its predecessors. Some of the newer streaming content also seems to be encoded at higher bit rates. Flash 10 offers higher resolution yet.

The process of downloading the flash video (not always easy) and reencoding is OK for making videos portable or archiving, but I'd like to be able to click a google video or quicktime link and view a live stream. The Duron just isn't up to that any longer.

Both my boxes run hand-me-down CPUs and other hardware. I've gotten great service from them, but I want one faster box for media. I also want to start using VirtualBox for playing with distros. Need more memory. Doesn't make sense to buy expensive memory for old mobo with slow memory bandwidth. A new mobo with dual core CPU and 2 GB memory would be a worthwhile investment.

I'll keep the Duron as my test box/backup box. Still a decent performer with Ubuntu, old as it is. Gotta love Linux!

Update: Flash 10 --

GPU acceleration modes are supported -- even on Linux. While the Windows version of Adobe's Flash Player is using DirectX for acceleration, the Linux version is hooking into OpenGL.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... &px=NjQ5OA

In search of Light and small Linux for a old computers

In search of Light and small Linux for a old computers

DSL vs. Vector vs....

One more resource on small Linuxes

Article: "SliTaz is getting much better (I guess)"

Re: In search of Light and small Linux for a old computers

Re: In search of Light and small Linux for a old computers

"Anatomy of Linux flash file systems"