I have a celeron class 2ghz , 512mb ram rig and pIII class, 128 laptop
if i do want to run mandriva 2008 on them,
are there anything i can do to fine tune the system, so it dont lag terribly?

Yes, there are a few things you can do. However, 512MB won't give you Gnome or KDE without them running slowly, so you'd need to look at a window manager instead such as XFCE. What are your intentions for it? Server without gui? Or desktop machine with gui?

First you need to disable all un-needed services after you have installed. Then there are some other tweaks you can do. However, even with this, Gnome/KDE won't perform good if your intention is to use these.

Beg your pardon, but a 2Ghz Celeron with 512 MB RAM is more than enough for running Mandriva with KDE or Gnome. They need some 256 MB RAM for running properly, so it should be pretty fast on that rig. (Mine has 1,67 Ghz and 1 MB RAM and Gnome flies on it).

The PIII, 128 MB system can be used for e.g. XFCE, Windowmaker, FLuxbox, Enlightenment or another lightweight solution.

Fnentuning can be done by disabling services, by using the optimum swap and swappiness settings, by using e.g. Abiword instead of OpenOffice and e.g. dillo instead of Firefox. And reduce the eye-candy.

Thanks all for imput.

For the purposes, i need to add that, i would use the celeron rig as server and the PIII laptop for desktop with GUI.
Seems there wont be much problem with the celeron




O yes, that should be what i want, i will try light weight GUI mandriva on it, to fit on a 10 gb hdd and 128 mb ram labtop.
(i know DSL/ puppy would work, but i want the linux machines on hand run more or less the same stuff, and that would be mandriva)

is it hard to install XFCE? how do i select from install screens?

You can download mandriva 2008 spring XFce here

I agree with arctic, except I would suggest trying Fluxbox first. I've used it as my “lightweight solution” on many low end systems, from 64MB > 192MB of RAM.

I might have been confusing 512MB with 256MB for Gnome/KDE desktops. I just remember my wife's laptop wasn't too hot with 512MB of RAM for Mandriva 2006/2007.

For the PIII, 128 MB system XFCE4 will definitely work, but don't expect stellar performance.
IMHO you should opt instead for an even less demanding DE. If you don't want to take one lightweight window manager and then start bulding around it, I can suggest either LXDE or JWM, as implemented in the latest Puppy Linux 4.0 release (earlier version 3.0.1 is even lighter on resources, but gtk1 basad- which in simple terms means: FAST AND UGLY.

I thought I read that he wants Mandriva on BOTH devices.

I don't think these older eyes are deceiving me.

Cheers. John.

Another lightweight option came into my mind. Rox. Really fast, doesn't eat up RAM and still offers a nice GUI. And then there is of course IceWM, which is available by default in Mandriva.

I completely agree with arctic.

Yves.

The DE, though, is only part of the equation. Actually, modern DEs in themselves don't eat so much RAM (though an appreciable amount for a 128MB machine). Bigger culprits are commonly used apps like Firefox (which *swallows* memory), mail clients, OpenOffice.org etc.

I agree that you would be perfectly fine with a standard install on the 512MB machine. My system's currently using 432MB out of my 1.5GB, and I'm running gimmie (which leaks memory like a sieve) and Evolution with several gigantic IMAP boxes open, or else it'd be substantially less.

For the 128MB machine, go with a light desktop like IceWM, Rox, EDE or something along those lines. But also look at light apps. Look at basic browsers like Kazehakase, Dillo and even links-graphic . For mail look at claws-mail or even go to an old-skool console client. Try and do all the editing you can in a simple text editor, rather than an office app. If you need an office app, go for something lighter than OO.o. Same for all areas generally - look for lighter weight alternatives to the fairly heavy apps most commonly used on systems with more resources. If you take a super-light desktop but then load Thunderbird, Firefox and OpenOffice.org onto it, things are still going to crawl.

And don't forget "good" old Netscape Communicator 4.8. Sure it is old. but:
- it understands way more Javascript and CSS than Dillo and Links-graphic (which are nice browsers nonetheless),
- it uses barely more memory than those other browsers,
- it provides a web browser, and a mail client, and a news reader!

And the mail client is more than satisfying: IMAP, POP, LDAP contacts… I never found a better "internet program" for my "nomade" laptop (32MB ram).

Yves.

theYinYeti: the only problem with that is that it hasn't had security updates for several years, so is likely subject to all sorts of vulns. Dillo is in the same state, but has only been so since Feb 2007, so probably less of a problem. links is actively maintained.

i like links. especially when i am here at work and i need to look professional while slacking off.

ciao!

Links is really cool and a wonderful way of old-school-browsing.

You're right adamw. Still, I don't hesitate an instant before using it on my "nomade" laptop.

Netscape has a lot more features than Dillo or Links. As for vulnerabilities, they would come from: a carefully crafted mail or news item, or a web site I visit that has been compromized in a way that makes the browser vulnerable. So:
- What web site author/cracker, or what spammer, these days, would care enough to target an attack at such an old program?
- What part of those hypothetical few attackers would target a bug from the Linux version?
- What part of those hypothetical few attackers would target a bug on a system where root access is denied?
- Last but not least: all important files on "nomade" (2GB hard drive!, 1.5GB of which are the OS+apps) are backed-up.

Yves.

I agree with Yves, there going to attack the most commonly used browsers at this current moment in time. They'll give up supporting the old browsers because practically nobody will be using them now.

Yep, that's a fair point. I just tend to try and use currently maintained software out of principle.

Not to mention a 10 1/2 year old P1 system running Mandriva 2008.1 using XFCE as the default desktop.

Most people do, hence why they don't bother to attack older software after a while

Of course, if you tried running some of todays software on old Pentium computers it would be quite hard.

I guess I'm going to have to take a picture of my 10 1/2 year old Pentium 1 system running Mandriva 2008 Spring, in order to quiet the skeptics.

I'm not just talking about the OS. Try OpenOffice 2.4 or some of the later software, and it will run slow. I have an old Pentium 133MHz dual processor system with 128MB of ram, I doubt very much it would even run OpenOffice 2.4 well enough.

OpenOffice.org isn't something I've tried on the Pentium yet.

As long as I use a parallel printer on it, printing is adequate as long as the system isn't doing anything else at the same time. If web browsing and printing at the same time, the browsing takes priority and will briefly stop and start the printing. I've also noticed this on 500 MHz AMD system.

Ah, that a K6-2 500MHz? I remember my old K6-2 450!

My 6-year-old son does fine on both Mandriva and Debian (of course, he's not aware of the difference). I don't see any reason for people to be skeptical.


For the record, back when my "nomade" laptop was running Mandrake 9.1, OpenOffice could load, but it required some 15 minutes to do so! However, once loaded, it ran fine. Anyway, Abiword is obviously a better choice for such hardware.

Yves.

Yes. Desktop 2 in the sig below.

Launching OpenOffice.org Writer 2.4.0 on the Pentium 1 (Desktop 1 in sig): The splash screen appeared after 12 seconds and after another 38 seconds (50 seconds total), the Writer screen appeared. Note that this is the first time OpenOffice.org was launched on the Pentium, so it was probably doing some first-time-only initializing of some things in the background. Taking 50 seconds, was faster than I had expected.

On a subsequent launch, it took 8 seconds for the splash screen to appear and 35 seconds total, before the Writer screen appeared.

I remember running Windows 3.1 on an old 286 8MHz with 2MB of ram and 20MB hard disk. It took a long time:)