billy mcpherson wrote:

> Hi everyone. I'm new to this newsgroup and to Linux. I'm getting an
> older
> (pentium 133mhz/128 ram/8gig HD) laptop, and want to give Linux a try.
> I'll only be using it for school things like notes and papers, and a
> little web
> surfing, AIM, and perhaps programming. Before I ask some really simple
> questions, is there an FAQ that deals with using Linux on an older laptop?
> I've never tried it on a laptop before (although i'm semi-familiar with
> Mandrake on my desktop), so i'm looking for information on things like
> what distribution is best, how to conserve battery power, working with
> PCMCIA
> devices, etc. If there's an FAQ or site out there that can help me, it
> would be great. Thanks in advance.
>
>

For performance reasons, you may want to try an older distro. Look for
something that would have been current, when the computer was new.

There's a lot of Linux documentation at www.tldp.org

--

Fundamentalism is fundamentally wrong.

To reply to this message, replace everything to the left of "@" with
james.knott.

On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 23:59:54 GMT, James wrote:
> billy mcpherson wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone. I'm new to this newsgroup and to Linux. I'm getting an
>> older
>> (pentium 133mhz/128 ram/8gig HD) laptop, and want to give Linux a try.
>>
>
> For performance reasons, you may want to try an older distro. Look for
> something that would have been current, when the computer was new.
>
> There's a lot of Linux documentation at www.tldp.org
>

For security, stability and bugfixes, I might try a newer distro. But I
would stay far away from bloated KDE 3+ and Gnome2. Stick with a
light-weight window manager, perhaps fluxbox, FVWM, or perhaps
enlightenment and you should be ok. Using things like mutt for mail or
slrn for newsgroups will help a lot too.

Brad

"Bradley Reed" wrote:
> Stick with a
> light-weight window manager, perhaps fluxbox, FVWM, or perhaps
> enlightenment and you should be ok. Using things like mutt for mail or
> slrn for newsgroups will help a lot too.

Speaking of light-weight text-based programs for older laptops:
Slightly off topic, but does anyone have a recommendation for a text-based
web browser? I'm thinking of links, lynx, w3m, elinks, etc. I've heard of
them (and even used lynx some 6-7 years ago), but I really don't know the
pros/cons of each.

Tony Curtis scribbled:

>>> On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 23:23:03 GMT,
>>> "billy mcpherson" said:
>
>> Hi everyone. I'm new to this newsgroup and to Linux.
>> I'm getting an older (pentium 133mhz/128 ram/8gig HD)
>> laptop, and want to give Linux a try. I'll only be
>> using it for school things like notes and papers, and a
>> little web surfing, AIM, and perhaps programming.
>> Before I ask some really simple questions, is there an
>> FAQ that deals with using Linux on an older laptop?
>
> http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Laptop-HOWTO.html
>
> And these may very well address experiences with the
> specific model (or a close relative thereof):
>
> http://www.tuxmobil.org/
> http://www.linux-laptop.net/
>
> Personally, I would go with something as "light" as
> possible on such an old machine; currently this would
> probably translate into Gentoo with fluxbox as the wm
> (hmmm, that's what I run everywhere :-). Slackware might
> also be a good choice.
>
> hth
> t

Slackware Linux and Debian GNU/Linux would be my recommendations based upon
experiences with my IBM ThinkPad 755CE (80486) and IBM ThinkPad 380D
(Pentium). XFCE is a great light-weight window manager that uses very few
system resources even on older hardware.

--
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Associate Member 499
Linux Counter Statistics: UserID 277671 MachineID 197525
LindowsOS v3.0 (Linux kernel 2.4.19) IBM ThinkPad R30 Celeron 512 MB RAM