sitor Posted July 24, 2004 Report Share Posted July 24, 2004 Hello, I will install Linux on a PC with only 64 MB of RAM. It's for a friend of mine that got his Windows machine all crippled by a virus. As he has no experience whatsover with Linux (but he is very open to it), I will install it for him. The system requirements mentioned on the Mandrakelinux site mention that 64 MB is the minimum, but they advice 128 MB. Anyone experience with such low amounts of RAM? Yeah, I know, RAM doesn't cost much, but this user does not want to do anything fancy (just some office stuff and websurfing). I know that next to KDE and GNOME, you can use other DEs as well, like IceWM for instance. Would that be more appropriate in this case? Do these use less memory? Thanks for some advice. Ciao, Sitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted July 24, 2004 Report Share Posted July 24, 2004 (edited) i suggest using http://delilinux.berlios.de/ for such an "old" comp. it comes with icewm and full working office suite. :) Edited July 24, 2004 by arctic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitor Posted July 24, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 24, 2004 Arctic, Thanks for the hint. However the computer is not that old. It has a 700MHz processor and a 25 GB HD. Just the memory is quite low. Mandrakemove and PCLinuxOS did not run due to that. Knoppix did but obviously very slow. Thats why I checked out the system requirements of Mandrake. DeLi Linux stands for "Desktop Light" Linux. It is a Linux Distribution for old computers, from 486 to Pentium MMX 166 or so. So that is going a bit too far I think in this case. I would like to know if someone did run Mandy on a PC with 64 MB and if it was doable. And if using e.g. IceWM i.o. KDE would help. Ciao, Sitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 you can run mdk on a 64mb ram machine but you have to strip it down a bit. no "toys", reduced number of apps/processes running in background. and use fluxbox, icewm or blackbox, as they are fairly small. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmpatrick Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 Linux loves ram and does not function in gui very well on low ram configurations IMHO.You might want to also take a look at Vector Linux which is also made to run a gui on lower ram/ older hardware: http://www.vectorlinux.com/mod.php?mod=use...u=10&page_id=14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitor Posted July 25, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 I have been testing Libranet in the mean time as well. They claim as well that it runs with 32MB RAM minimum, 64MB recommended, just as Vector Linux. However I couldn't get Openoffice installed. I tried it in VMware, and limiting the RAM there to 64MB led to reasonable results with IceWM, but running quite slow on KDE. What strikes me with these low RAM distros (Vector Linux and Libranet) is that they run IceWM by default, where other distro's run KDE or GNOME by default. So I suppose that does make quite a difference. I'll try to install Mandrake, with IceWM and KDE. If KDE runs too slow (probably), then it might still work with IceWM. We can of course try to get more RAM installed, but then I will need to find out what type it is and whether it can still be found. Thanks for the replies anyway. Ciao, Sitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
arctic Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 (edited) What strikes me with these low RAM distros (Vector Linux and Libranet) is that they run IceWM by default, where other distro's run KDE or GNOME by default. So I suppose that does make quite a difference. sure. vector linux is a lightning fast linux-system without much "bulk" in it and as it shall be as fast as possible, it doesn't use kde or gnome or other de's that need lots of ram (kde and gnome are the most ram-unfriednly de's). you should keep in mind that vector (which is based on slackware) is not intended to be a newbies distro, as it is somewhat more tricky to configure vector. oh, one thing... i wouldn't try to install kde with mandrake on this comp. use windowmaker, flux or blackbox along with icewm and a smaller word processor (e.g. latex). kde will use up nearly all of your ram. ;) Edited July 25, 2004 by arctic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kde-head Posted July 25, 2004 Report Share Posted July 25, 2004 (edited) you can run mdk on a 64mb ram machine but you have to strip it down a bit. no "toys", reduced number of apps/processes running in background. and use fluxbox, icewm or blackbox, as they are fairly small. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> icewm has a windows xp theme. but it's darn hard to configure if you come from the windows world (lots and lots of text based config'ing) You could try out XFCE - very very lightweight. but windozey in nature. xfce is a mandrake package (urpmi xfce) having said that - one does have to wonder why icons on the desktop arent a feature of IceWM - if they added that, it would go some way to helping the rest of us convert these types of low end machines. Edited July 25, 2004 by kde-head Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theYinYeti Posted July 26, 2004 Report Share Posted July 26, 2004 On a old laptop (P.MMX-150, 32MB RAM), I run Mdk8.2 with IceWM (KDE is no-go, but Gnome is still bearable). It's fine. OpenOffice.org takes ages to load, but when it's done, it is usable. On a tower-PC (PII-350, 192MB RAM), everything and anything is perfect with Mdk10. So I think that latest Mandrake (10) is your best choice. You're a little low on RAM, but fast CPU and fast hard disk (probably 7400rpm?) should compensate. Just don't use heavy apps: - For window manager, I suggest you use IceWM, or even lighter (but not ugly) Matchbox (this WM was created for low-RAM machines such as PDAs). - For files and icons management, go with ROX. If you choose Matchbox, then there are alternatives to ROX, especially created for Matchbox integration. - For internet browsing, Mozilla is the standards winner. But it is heavy. So if you don't mind having some sites looking strange (broken layout...), go with the latest Netscape 4 (Communicator 4.79 IIRC). It has the additional bonus of handling all kinds of mail setups nicely (HTML mail, rich text, POP3, IMAP, news...). Yves. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SwiftDeath Posted July 27, 2004 Report Share Posted July 27, 2004 Maybe you also try adding some extra swap space on his partition before you install it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sitor Posted July 28, 2004 Author Report Share Posted July 28, 2004 Hello, Just to give some feedback: I have done some testing in the mean time in VMWare. The purpose is for me to give this user at least the same experience as he is used to. That means that he should be able to use a good office suite. I only know OpenOffice well, so that is what I used as a benchmark. So I did a test with the different DEs / WMs that you can install Mandrake of from the CDs. The test was simply to measure the time it took to launch OpenOffice and wait til it was ready to accept input in a fluent way: KDE: 6min30sec GNOME: 6min10sec IceWM: 1min40sec WindowMaker: 1min08sec Enlightenment: 2min30sec Blackbox: 1min50sec So the result is that you cannot really use KDE with only 64MB RAM (once OOo was loaded, typing the text went quite OK with any of them though). So in the mean time I let the user know he has two options: either a rudimentary desktop (IceWM) without any costs, either upgrade the RAM and be able to use KDE (which he has seen in Knoppix and liked quite good). Hey, the 128 MB RAM doesn't cost more the a virus scanner these days! And it is virii that started this in the first plase. Just for completeness I changed the RAM settings for the VMWare machine to 128MB RAM and ran the test again: KDE: 55sec GNOME: 1min06sec IceWM: 35sec WindowMaker: 27sec Enlightenment: 35sec Blackbox: 25sec This shows that 128MB RAM is surely sufficient. Of course these figures only give a general idea, since they will depend largely on software installed, speed of processor, HD, amount of SWAP (I did have 500MB). Moreover there is the loss in performance just from using VMWare. Ciao, Sitor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pzatch Posted July 28, 2004 Report Share Posted July 28, 2004 A Virtual Machine also tends to slow things down a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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