brewno Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 Hello. I have an old, old laptop here, from around 99. Its a Toshiba 2060 (AMD K-7 333 MHz with 4Gb and 96 Mb of RAM). Runs Windows 98 / 2K perfectly, but I was thinking it could run Linux better and faster. I tried Ubuntu but it was too heavy for it. If you know any distro that would run fast on this machine, please post here, so I can have a look! =) Thanks! Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnniecarcinogen Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 You should try xubuntu which has the ubuntu base but ses the XFce desktop environment which is much lighter than gnome or kde. An even faster option would be to install Slax Popcorn edition from the live cd. The slax cd doesn't partition your hard drive though so you need to do it manually or with your ubuntu cd. Eventhough XFce may not have as much eyecandy as gnome or KDE check out xfcelook for themes, icons, etc. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-175538 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwhsh8r Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 Hello.I have an old, old laptop here, from around 99. Its a Toshiba 2060 (Pentium 333 MHz with 4Gb and 96 Mb of RAM). Runs Windows 98 / 2K perfectly, but I was thinking it could run Linux better and faster. I tried Ubuntu but it was too heavy for it. If you know any distro that would run fast on this machine, please post here, so I can have a look! =) Thanks! well, not really linux but pc-bsd, or centos.... if u really want to stick with linux max Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-175547 Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_muad_dib Posted August 27, 2006 Share Posted August 27, 2006 uhmmm those are pretty heavy distros to run on that hdd+processor try debian instead (i386 version), "damn small linux" or gentoo if you have another pc to compile the base system xfce is light but good just make sure you get a large swap space Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-175555 Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewno Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 Thanks for the replies, guys. I downloaded "damn small linux" (because its damn small) to test it out and when I went to put it on my laptop, I found out the CD reader is up. Guess I have to find a way to use a USB key or something (the old BIOS wont recognize boot from usb). Its practically impossible to install a new OS now =/ I guess I'll retire that machine It's bout time. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-177674 Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_muad_dib Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 try to clean cd reader's lens, and the rotating spot. it helped a couple of times Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-177680 Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewno Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 I already used those CDs with a brush thingy, but that doesnt do anything. Offtopic: I was watching , and I thought of our friend bwhsh8r here... hehehe. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-177752 Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnniecarcinogen Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Offtopic: I was watching , and I thought of our friend bwhsh8r here... hehehe. There is a way to install linux from within windows without using a cd drive or USB stick. Instlux installs openSuse or ubuntu from within windows. Since it works with Ubuntu it should work with xubuntu too. Just use daemontools to mount the xubuntu iso when asked to put in the cd. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-177893 Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewno Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 Wow, fantastic. Thanks a lot! That's going to help, definately. Now all I need to know what distro will run fine on my AMD K-7 333Mhz =P So many options it's not even funny. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-178008 Share on other sites More sharing options...
velayo Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 Men I have a similar system and I'm running Dreamlinux. It is based on XFCE but is XFCE done right. It is beautiful, light and it has synaptic as the package manager. It even has a dock that acts like the one on OSX. Take a look at it, you won't regret it. Did I mention that it looks a lot like OSX, with beautiful icons? http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/ Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-178109 Share on other sites More sharing options...
brewno Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 Men I have a similar system and I'm running Dreamlinux. It is based on XFCE but is XFCE done right. It is beautiful, light and it has synaptic as the package manager. It even has a dock that acts like the one on OSX. Take a look at it, you won't regret it. Did I mention that it looks a lot like OSX, with beautiful icons? http://www.dreamlinux.com.br/ OMG that looks awesome. Downloading right now. I have Ubuntu CDs and I've used Mandrake and SuSe before... but they never captivated me. Lets see this one... I hope it works on a slow-slow-slow system like the laptop's... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-178532 Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwhsh8r Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 I already used those CDs with a brush thingy, but that doesnt do anything. Offtopic: I was watching , and I thought of our friend bwhsh8r here... hehehe. ahahhahhhhahahahah, yep, sadly that is true cept for bsd is better than linux... what did you end up setteling on, and if anything, i think that if you cant boot off of the cd drive you could get one of those cheep laptop hdd->usb inclosures, install it off of another pc, and then pop it back in? or just borrow an external usb cd drive or something, dreamlinux is good, http://www.vectorlinux.com/ is another good one, debian is very good too (runs good on a P5-100 at home with 32MB ram and a 6gb hdd) max Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-180751 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhapsody Guru Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Ahem... you mite want to read this. I looked all over for this article. Hope it helps. Click here to see it. Guru Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-180995 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkCarnival Posted September 6, 2006 Share Posted September 6, 2006 You don't need to kick off Ubuntu just yet. Gnome and KDE are probably too heavy for ya. But the debian-base of Ubuntu makes it really easy to swap for a lighter WM. I recommend you browse the net and have a look at the following WM's: Xfce Fluxbox Enlightenment IceWM I especially find fluxbox a really neat alternative. It's really fast, has a lot of readily available themes from http://themes.freshmeat.net/browse/962/ (Actually, both the fluxbox and blackbox themes can be used since fluxbox is based on blackbox ) And I can guarantee you that fluxbox runs without a hitch on most pc's [Not to the person asking questions] Why should he ditch linux in favour of BSD ? As far as I understand, you guys run the same software as we do so why should it be any faster ? And don't start the whole self-compiling-makes-stuff-faster because it doesn't necessarily do that, and who would compile an entire OS with software on a 333mHz ? It would take yeaaarrsssss Anyway, please enlighten me here, because I have been tempted to try a BSD-distro ever since I fell in love with the way slackware organised it's initscripts Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/25928-help-me-fix-an-old-laptop/#findComment-182571 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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