General :: Selecting A Distro For An Old Laptop ( IBM ThinkPad R40 )?
Jun 17, 2011
i got given an old IBM think pad R40 laptop with a broken HDD and im looking for a linux distro for it, its got 128 mb of ram and a mobile P4 - M 1.80ghz processor all im gonna use it for is basic word processing/taking notes in the field etc. but i would like to have a reasnoble GUI ive tried Puppy, DSL and SLITAZ but their GUI's are rather crude.
I've got this old computer. PII processor, 4gb HDD, I forget how much ram but the mobo is an AOpen AX63 pro [URL].. The machine still runs great. I just finished cleaning all the connections with alcohol and putting the thing back together. I've got Ubuntu 5.10 on it right now, but with so little in the way of system resources, I want to get something more scaled down on there. Googling hasn't resulted in anything really useful.
So, does anybody know of a scaled down distro aimed at old computers? Obviously something current would be great (I considered trying to find a netbook distro and use that, but I don't know if there would be any issues using that kind of thing on a desktop.) but I'd be willing to use an older distro if I need to. I really just want to use it as a writing machine, with maybe some basic internet access.
I've just joined the linux gang(or I am trying to) I have
-downloaded desktop/netbook edtion
-burned to dvd using infrarecord
-changed bios settings to boot from cd
-didn't work
-used the override feature that gives a bootlist at splash screen but cd drive not listed so I assume the cd is not recognised as a boot disk
-tried the usb/cd maker that comes with in the rar but its looking for the cd image...an .iso file, but I can't find one in folder.
ubuntu says I can run a trial from the cd alongside vista but when I open the executable it just offers intall, no try and if selected starts to install I think I can do the partition thing if I have to but I don't want any vista running on my machine.
I currently have a Toshiba Satellite C655 laptop running windows 7. What would be the best distro for a laptop? I would prefer that it installs with a windows installer, because I don't want to try repartioning to be able to keep windows. I've tried Ubuntu's "wubi" and Mint's "mint4win". However, I wasn't able to connect to wifi on either of them.
in the linux world i have a old thoshiba laptop 2550cdt.im wondering if you can post me some suggestions about the distros. which one i should download for my laptop?
I have an Acer TravelMate 2300 and I was wondering someone could advise me a distribution and configuration that would run smoothly on the system. I have been trying to install the latest version of Mint (no. but it seems to be too much and tends to lag out.
I have an Averatec Laptop, the screen was broken so we took it off an hooked it up to a small "E" flat monitor and it works fine. We run the Laptop as a desktop now. It has Windows XP service pack 3 on it and runs using a DLink wireless adapter. Our Averatec has a 1.39 GHz processor with 224 MB of Ram and 27.9 Gb of Hard drive.I burned an ISO CD of Puppy Linux and ran Puppy from the CD. It installed well but when I went to use an online game called Farmville the whole screen froze and I had to turn the computer off to get it going again. Farmville worked on the computer when it ran XP could it be that Puppy Linux is not the right Distro for my computer or do I need a distro that has Java or flash applications on it and if so where or how can I do this?
I got a new laptop with 320 gb hdd,2 gb RAM and intel core i3 processor...the manufacturer is lenovo..its pre installed with windows 7 ultimate pack..i'm interested to install a linux distro..so i wanna know which distro suits my laptop configuration.in a best way.
Used ubuntu a little, few days ago tried booting with puppy linux on usb drive.
I was amazed by its speed, since everything runs in ram, its not comparable with w7. That is the key feature im looking for.
I know, that the most common recommendation here, is to "try out different *nix based OS-es and find the one that suits".
I hope i can rely on other people experience, who have comparable system and silmilar hopes.
What i expect?
-working infrared -speedstep -hibernation?! -support for canon camera -ACPI (crucial, since t41 has "fan always on" issue) -quick boot -constant saving (puppy saves data to memory, which is a problem is power-cut happens)
Im sure puppy can fill out most of these requirements, but still im looking word from you guys.
Ive heard a lot good about algo zenwalk, vector, MijnPup, igelle...
Oh, maybe even tinycore will work...
There are simply so many of them, but i would like to sort out one which has periodical updates and has fulfilled my requirements. Also, Gnome interface would be nice.
I state that, i wont be needing bundled software, because i can get what i want later on and i don't want excess trouble uninstalling software.
I have an old old laptop and wanted to try Linux on it. I know next to nothing about Linux and slightly more than nothing about Unix. I made a pen drive with Ubuntu on it but the laptop won't boot from a USB device. So I downloaded several distros. I tried to boot a Ubuntu CD but it won't go past the splash screen. I tried DSL and it won't boot that either. So it's still running Windows 98SE at this point.
I tried several of the distro's under QEMU on my desktop and they seem to work... so the distro's are OK I think. Then I tried burning Knoppix on a DVD and booting the PC. I get the splash screen and it get to the point of saying something like "running dbus" and just hangs forever. I waited 40 minutes and still nothing. Tried booting the PC instead with a distro called "PCLinux Phoenix XFCE" that I burned onto CD. Once again splash screen and then nothing. Finally got a message saying it can't configure video and do I want to do it by hand. Really? Like I can do that. So I booted Win XP again and somehow THAT manages to run both monitors.
I need to install linux for my acer 4741 laptop. Anyone who did this before and managed to solve the device driver problems please share your experience with me. I already installed the backtrack linux and I able to make it work the both wireless and wired network connections and also the sound card is also working. But the problem is that I unable to configure 1360x768 resolution of the display. The display looking really flat and ugly under that linux. some help ? can you guide how to correctly configure the /etc/X11/xorg.conf ?
I got a laptop for free. It's an old POS, but it was free, and it basically works for pretty much what I am going to use it for. Web Browsing, Cloud Computing type stuff.NOTE: I am an extreme Google Whore. To paraphrase Jay-Z: Google Mail, Google Docs, all Google Everything. lol. when considering my question, please keep this in mind.anyhow, this is what I am working with:
HP Pavilion zt1130 Windows XP SP3 Intel Celeron Processor 1133MHz 684MB RAM S3 Graphics Twister 16MB 20GB Hard Drive DirectX 9.0c Linksys Wireless-G Network Adapter
as I mentioned above, I use Google Stuff for my primary computing Needs. GMail, Google Docs for Office stuff, Reader for RSS, etc. with Google Gears to make these apps usable offline. I also use LastFM, Twitter, etc. My preferred browser is Chrome, but I can settle for Firefox if necessary. I am trying to figure out if getting off of Windows XP, and switching to Linux might help with boosting the performance of this old, crappy machine(does the OS even matter in regards to this?), and maybe push it more towards being more of a Cloud Computing machine. and which Distro would probably be best for me and my computer.
I know absolutely nothing about Linux beyond common, basic stuff. So anything that requires some complex set up is not what I am looking for. I'd also need a decently easy to use GUI. But I am unsure about hardware compatibility and things like that. I don't wanna wipe my HD, and break the computer trying to install Linux,
One of the big problems I'm having is with the Network Adapter. It won't work with Ubuntu or any Ubuntu based distros. Backtrack 4 won't even start for me (there's a problem with the ACPI, and I'm not sure how to turn it off on Backtrack). Is there any distribution that I won't have to mess with the Kernels too much (I tried Gentoo, but that was a bit over my head)
I'm trying to control the fan speed on my laptop (IBM Thinkpad T43.) I used lsmod and saw that the thinkpad_acpi module was already load, but I know I need the fan_control=1 option so I did this:
$modprobe thinkpad_acpi fan_control=1. Then I did: $echo level 7 > /proc/acpi/ibm/fan and I get an error: write error: Invalid argument
I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong here, Also, if I wanted to load the module thinkpad_acpi at boot time with the fan_control=1 option, should I add it to /etc/rc.modules? In other words, does the rc.modules file override udev? And do I need to remove the module before reloading it with the fan_control=1 option?
I really need some control over my fan speed, as it seems by laptop is running rather hot.
I have Lenovo Thinkpad R400 laptop. It has Intel Centrino Core 2 Duo processor with ATI Radeon 3400 series graphics card and Intel Mobility chipset series 4 Integrated graphics controller. I have Squeeze ( stable) installed on it with kernel 2.6.32-5-686 .
My laptop gets very hot within 10 minutes whether I do any task or not. Also battery life is almost 40% as compared to Windows. I am more worried about temperature as it remains completely cool in windows. Mostly CPU load remains around 10% and CPU spends 99.99% time at 800MHz clock. I believe heat generated is by graphics card chipset.
Following are some information about my machine
$ lspci 00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Memory Controller Hub (rev 07) 00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset PCI Express Graphics Port (rev 07) 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation Mobile 4 Series Chipset Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 07)
I had sound before but after one of the latest updates the sound quit working. I read other threads and they suggested to type. Code: alsamixer on terminal. I did that and unmute everything and pumped each setting to the highest possible. When I boot the laptop again everything is muted, How can I save settings or what other solutions are there for this problem.
I just receive a very thin laptop but pretty old, it has 2 hard drives or kind of hard drives... of 16 GB each, I don't know about the RAM, probably 512 Mb, maybe 1 Gb (I don't remember how to see that on windows) and an intel core duo.It's currently running a legal windows xp (I specify legal cause it's pretty rare), it's not "slow" but it could be a lot faster, it still takes a few seconds to load IE and stuffs.
I'm a mac user, I'm only using debian server version for web servers and databases so I don't know how it works with a user interface.I've heard about Archlinux, it says it's pretty fast but do you know which one is the fastest one ?
I'll be using the laptop for taking notes only, probably on google docs but it'd be cool if I could store some images and stuff without waiting 10 secs to open a new window.By the way, if you could quickly explain me how do I install the GUI and which one is fastest cause when I've installed Ubuntu, Gnome was already installed by default.Finally, there is no way to insert DVD / CDs, it's like the Mac Book Air, so I haven't installed any linux distro from a USB stick either.
when I tried to download a installation DVD of F10 for my new thinkPad T500 laptop.The architecture of the processor should be i686 and I downloaded the DVD image Fedora-10-i386-DVD.iso. I understand i686 has backward compatability with i386. But i have following questoins:
(1) why we don't have an installation for i686?
(2) If I install the i386 package, do I get performance downgrades?
(3) Also, why the live DVD has this file called F10-i686-Live.iso?
(4) Finally, I always get message like "Warning: Cannot convert string "nil2" to type FontStruct /usr/bin/xterm: cannot load font -misc-fixed-medium-r-semicondensed--13-120-75-75-c-60-iso10646-1" when I use X application. What's the problem here? BTW, I used Fedora core 8 before I didnt have this problem.
Im kind a new to open suse, though I think its a very nice alternative to the ordinary Linux distroes.Recently I tried to make a distro for my laptop in the living room, -the only thing its supposed to do is play music, and be able to connect to the internet from time to time. However, I must have forgotten some packages or something, cause when I booted the engine after installing,-(wich btw went smooth:-)) -I cannot play any music, -getting some fail message. -Now iVE installed all the g-streamer packages and the totem player, what else do I need ???. -Have been looking through the packages, but I dont seem to find any other packages related that i think i shound use...
Our organization has several external IP addresses. I am behind 2 layers of NAT and the servers choose which IP address to route my traffic to. Can I specify which IP address to use when finally leaving the organizations network. I know that source routing can be done in IPv4 by adding some options in the header. But can I configure my PC to add these options automatically. I have both a Windows and a Linux Machine.
I've been using Linux for about six years now, and I joined this website hoping to learn more about Linux, keep updated with Linux news, others less experienced than me; I spend so much time on Reddit I rarely remember there's a whole Internet how there and I've yet to really visit this website since I registered. I'm posting this in the newbie section because the problem I'm having feels like it probably has a simple solution, but I don't what to do. If this forum is inappropriate, I suppose a mod could move it?
Anyway, upon highlighting a link in either Firefox 4 nightly or Chromium, I get this pop-up menu: [URL](copy paste and remove the space between the h and the t - and yes, this is a "screenshot" taken with a camera, as this menu seems to inhibit the functioning of the PrintScreen key for some reason) I do not need to click - as soon as a URL is highlighted, the menu pops up, forcing me to click away in order to cancel the menu. At first I assumed it was a Firefox thing - it happens in both 3.6 and 4 Nightly - so I began checking all of my add-ons (only 4) and plugins to see if I have some plugin causing this. Nothing seemed to be.
When I switched to Chromium, I quickly realized the same thing happens in Chromium, as well, so it's independent of what browser I'm using. This leads me to believe it's some package I have installed (apt-get, I'm using Linux Mint on this laptop, and on my other computers, which are running Arch, I do not encounter this in either Chromium or Firefox4) that's causing this, so if someone could just identify what package it is I can remove it. Or maybe my assumption is incorrect and there's something else that leads to this popup, but either way, it's really annoying and I want it gone!
I don't understand why this is so difficult.In the old days, there was lpforms which allowed some formatting. CUPS did not see fit to implement this into it's lp package.cgi-...-cgi?lpforms+1In the old days, lpr allowed you to select a font in the command line with -1=fontname. CUPS did not see fit to implement this into it's lpr package.htmIn the old days, printers had fonts installed on them that you could access. Modern printers don't seem to have this. So now I still need to be able to select a font when I print certain text files from the command line but it seems this is impossible. I've been working with instances and lpoptions, which allows me to do a lot of other things I need like orientation and margins and even set the font size, but I still cannot choose a font other than the default.
i had windows 7 on my system and now i installed debian squeeze but grub does not show my windows 7 in menu for selecting how could repair this problem?
what is the diffrence between desktop ubuntu 10.04 lts and Laptop ubuntu 10.04 lts distro?i've try'd kubuntu 9.04 x64 on mi desktop cpu e6400 2gb ram 2x 500gb,1x250 gb and GF8600gt with 512mb ram the cpu overclocked to 3.0ghz and fsb from 1066 to 1200+ with ram from 800 to 960 mhz.it was flying.now after solving mi previous problems with grub. i decided to instal 10.04 lts x86 /32 bits ubuntu to mi toshiba laptop A100-529 1.6 ghz celeron 1gb ram@533 80 gb.it's mooving verry verry slow.
also i have to admit that this version is full of apps an enviroment features..but still on minimal visual effects it's running like mi granpa' anny syggestions ?
Lubuntu is nice - but it seems the LXDE version is not as up to date as Fedora LXDE Spin or even Debian squeeze with LXDE installed. I do like Chromium on Lubuntu though... its faster and a nice touch. I am looking for a lightweight 64-bit distribution for my main laptop (it is by no means "old" or "low spec" but I like that Lubuntu starts up in like 2 secs).
LXDE version seems not to be recent (esp in 10.04 version which seems to work more stably for me - with Nvidia drivers etc)64 bit install is currently a pain - requires first install of minimal CD or alternate CD both of which required wired Ethernet, then install of lubuntu from PPA. Native 64-bit support would be nice. Linux Mint LXDE, for example, is also only 32-bit.