[sf-lug] distro for an ageing laptop

[Bobbie Sellers]

If I may,

On 03/25/2017 11:09 AM, Rick Moen wrote:
> 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.

     I believe Alex is suffering from the misapprehension that Ubuntu is 
no longer
supporting i386 aka 32 bit versions but I have informed him in private email
  that this is not the case.  I also offered him alternatives to his 
planned 7 hour
download of Knoppix.
     By the way you can get Knoppix in all its many incarnations from 
Sonic.net
<http://mirrors.sonic.net/knoppix/knoppix-cd/> where there happen to be
actually downloadable iso files for CD sized media.

     In addition I have directed him to download sites for Lubuntu and 
Ubuntu
in i386 versions.

>
> 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
>
>
     Bobbie Sellers - bliss "running fast and light" on PCLinuxOS64-2016.03
GNU/Linux 4.9.16-pclos1 #1 SMP Wed Mar 15
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