Linux Which Linux Distribution for a P4 PC

Karthi007 said:
Setup:
P4 2.26GHz
Gigabyte 8I845GVM-RZ mobo
256MB DDR RAM
Click to expand...
Freaky similar!
I have the same proc, same mobo and same amount of RAM. Arch Linux runs like a champ on the machine. Takes hardly 20-25 minutes to install and set up.
 
why not try out Lubuntu 10.04 alpha2 in a virtual machine and see for yourself (I will if/once I get faster broadband and some time) hopefully this weekend!
 
If u don't want to install full time, u can try knoppix 5.0 CD or any older version. Just for the info, I had a Celeron 1.8 GHz with 384 mb RAM and use to run knoppix 5.0. the system was slow but just ok for surfing.

Even now, i use knoppix 6.2 DVD on athlon 240 with 2 gb RAM. Things work fine for me.
 
I was really hoping to install Ubuntu 9.10 (the whole OS factor), until I was made aware of its min. requirements. :(

I already have Knoppix with me, so looking to try something else.

And no, won't be installing it. Running off the CD as intended.

Will check out the other suggestions.

Thanks all.
 
Best bet (linux distro) for a P3, 256MB RAM spec'd notebook?
And no, won't be installing it. Running off the CD as intended.
Click to expand...
puppy linux should be perfect for such a system.
ON reboot the OS settings can be saved to Hdd/pendrive/cdrw
 
btw, installed lubuntu in virtualbox and mem usage shows about 222mb with fresh boot into GUI with no apps running. funny part is that for same scenario , ubuntu 9.10 shows 209mb mem usage! :D

so it looks like these may not be good options for 256mb RAM, but looks like on my P4/512mb PC I can install the FULL SHEBANG ubuntu OS for my aunt :D or add another 1gb RAM stick and install win7 for her :P
 
Lubuntu alpha 3 looking real good... I will try it on my tablet PC soon: Lubuntu Alpha 3 Released (Screenshots added) | OMG! Ubuntu!

google chrome browser as default! screenshots included in the link.

Just tried it out and it looks very good on virtualbox VM of 1 cpu with 256 mb ram - chrome running with apt installation in background and the system monitor shows moderate cpu usage with about 200 mb ram used (not counting the "cache")...

and btw, bootup speed inside the VM is about 15 seconds...
 
Running a Debian based distro would be preferable for a newbie but Ubuntu and it's sidekicks would be too heavy for 256 MB RAM.

I want to recommend Zenwalk; though it is not Debian based, it's light and does the work fine.
 
^ I guess eating less RAM at fresh boot does not exactly correlate to great performance.

And how exactly is one going to do all the stuff with just ~50 MB RAM free when the computer starts?

On a similar note, my 2.26 Ghz rig has 1 GB RAM, but Ubuntu 9.04 32 bit does not outperform Windows 7 32 bit by any significant margin. Both are sluggish. Ubuntu eats only ~ 200 MB at startup. Windows 7 takes around ~400.
 
Here's what I can tell you folks from my own experience.

Machine: Celeron 366 MHz, 256MB RAM

Distributions/OSes tested: Ubuntu, Xubuntu, Lubuntu, Fluxubuntu, Crunchbang, Fedora, Vector Linux(based on Slackware), Arch, OpenBSD, Puppy Linux, Dream Linux, DesktopBSD & Slitaz.

Other mention: Tiny Core Linux. I didn't get to try this since I had thrown my pc in the loft.
But this should work wonders. Only 10(ten) MB, with GUI !

Best overall performance: Puppy Linux.

Medium performance: Vector linux, Arch, Slitaz, DesktopBSD, Dream Linux

Worst performance: Ubuntu & variants, Fedora. No matter how much you strip them down, you'll never be content with the results. To futher narrow down, Fedora worked better than Ubuntu.

Of course P4 is a faster processor than a Celeron, so I might be a little off with my recommendations.

Anyway, my suggestions would be:

Puppy Linux(~100 MB)

Tiny Core Linux( ONLY 10 MB, with GUI !)

Slitaz(~30 MB)
 
Yup, good post alcy, repped. Sure other specialised distros like puppy etc take way less resources.

But I have good hopes for Lubuntu (which is still under development) when its final release happens. I personally prefer to stick with the "Ubuntu platform" because of my familiarity with it and its known user base/community support etc, so the fact that Lubuntu works great (at least in my restricted spec VM) is a very good plus point...
 
Thanks for repping me up. :)

I understand what you're trying to say. To be honest, when I was using Puppy, I thought they had the best community. But its been quite some time now, mostly due to hardware upgrades, I am back to using the big distros.
 
I tried LXDE on Ubuntu the other day. Just 10 MB worth of downloads -- I love apt. Installed and ready to use. I restarted and logged in to LXDE.

Oh. My. God.

Horrible! In fact the worst thing I've ever witnessed on Linux.
First, it's ugly as sh!t. Yeah, sh!t.
Second -- I did not get the performance I expected. Sure it might have taken lesser RAM and whatever, but Window drawing was horrible! As if it did not use any hardware acceleration at all. Might have been the case with me only though. I use a Full HD display on a puny Nvidia FX5200, and works fine on Gnome.

It's the worst and least thought out PoS UI you'd ever see. It is very much possible to make a light as well as good-looking/functional UI. Sadly, LXDE isn't it.

What's with the stupid name for the File Manager? "PCManFM".
I should agree that it was very responsive though. Also, I got "Leafpad". A very Notepad like and fast/functional text editor -- I hated how bad the Gnome text editor performed.
-----------------------------

It's actually things like LXDE that make me yuck! linux. Things that increase choice but pull it backwards in the end. Gnome and KDE are themselves two too many. And considering the whole mess, Gnome is much better.
 
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