[sf-lug] distro for an ageing laptop

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Alex Kleider (akleider at sonic.net):

> >Anyway:  How much RAM ya got?
> 
> I just realized that the IBM BIOS Setup Utility reveals:
> Installed memory   1536MB

1024 MB + 512 MB = 1536 MB.  So, 1.5 acros two sticks.  That's actually
quite a bit of RAM for a ThinkPad T41, given that its theoretical
maximum is 2 GB, fully loaded.  Back in the middle to late 2000s, my
company-issued work laptop was an IBM ThinkPad T41p, which differs from
your T41 only in having an ATI Radeon video chip in addition to the
integrated Intel one.  

_That_ laptop had 2GB total RAM, and it comfortably ran all of the
following simultaneously:

o  Debian with WindowMaker as the native OS.
o  VMware Workstation 5.5 as the hypervisor layer
o  MS-Windows XP Pro as the (virtualised) guest OS, so I could have
   Outlook and MSIE running for corporate communication.  (This
   was a huge firm that was totally reliant on MS-Exchange Server,
   and has a number of ActiveX-dependent intranet sites, so it was
   easier to just have a virtual copy of XP Pro than mess around
   with Evolution betaware and MSIE on WINE.)

It never felt short on RAM, running all that.

By the way, the ThinkWiki is your friend.
http://www.thinkwiki.org/wiki/Category:T41

I'm really surprised that you say Ubuntu Desktop Edition for IA32 will
not run on that.  With 1.5 GB of RAM,  The published hardware
requirements[1] are 512MB RAM, 5 GB disk space (presumably with the default 
kitchen-sink install), any old VGA chip able to do 1024x769, either a
CD/DVD optical drive or a USB port for installer media, and a 700MHZ
Celeron or better CPU.

Specifically installing the _Unity_ graphical shell for GNOME3
(replacing GNOME Panel) requires a lot more than that: 1GB RAM, a 1GHz
Celeron or better, and -- most notably -- a 3D-capable video chip with
at least 256 MB RAM.  But that merely means don't try to run GNOME3
w/Unity on a 2005 laptops, which is pretty obvious.  (I personally 
wouldn't want to run GNOME3 at all, but definitely not GNOME3 w/the
Unity shell on something from the mid-2000s.)

I'm actually a bit mystified about what problem you encountered.  You
said only 'The current version of Ubuntu no longer runs on it', but did
not elaborate.  What's the obstacle?

Anyway, maybe you should give Bodhi Linux w/Moksha Desktop a try on it.
Link w/reviews:
http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=bodhi
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?issue=20161219#bodhi

Your T41 came with either a 30, 40, or 60GB PATA hard drive, so there is
ample hard drive space for the AppPack Edition instead of the
pared-down-for-starters Standard Edition, if you wish to splurge on
default-installed software.


[1] https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements