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[haywire]

For vector linux standard...

The listed system requirements are a pentium 3 and 128 megs of ram. Is this a general suggestion or is that set in stone? I have a laptop thats pentium II 200mhz with 64 megs will it absolutely choke on that or just run slow?


For vector linux light....

I see it can install with just 64 megs ram, but does anyone know what the hard drive space requirements are for a full install?
Also, is there a panel manager or equivelant for icewm?

And, can you change the start menu button graphic like you can in xfce, and if so how?
Thanks,

Steven

[nightflier]

A full VL6 Light installation consumes 3 GB of disk space. Give it at least 5 so you have room to work.

Icewm is configured by manually editing configuration files: http://www.icewm.org/manual/
An Internet search for "icewm theme" will reveal a large number of available pre-made themes.

[nightflier]

I have a laptop thats pentium II 200mhz with 64 megs will it absolutely choke on that or just run slow?

On a machine like that, I'd say use VL Light without Icewm. That will leave you with JWM, which is one of the lightest available window managers. Use HV3 or Dillo for (limited) internet browsing.

[drazen]

@haywire: I use Vector 6.0 light on 700 MHz Coppermine laptop with 128 MB RAM. Works great! Idles on 40 MB RAM. Rarely ever uses SWAP. I presume that nightflier is right re. 64 MB setup.
The only other usable Linux for my old laptop machine was Salix LXDE (60 MB RAM "idle"). However, Vector is faster. I would like it upgraded a bit to newer kernel and ext4 filesystem so I can use it on other machines as well.
Please beware that modern popular apps like OpenOffice and Firefox might take 50 MB of RAM. So, do not even think of trying on such a low mem computer. Do not waste time on any of the lighter flavors of any other distro! Nothing will work. DSL will as well as well as DELI but you are looking at distros no longer developed for years (At least no updates published). Puppy will NOT work. You will be able to install it, bur apps will take A LOT of RAM. (PET intaller takes 200+ MB).
Antix will be taxing 60 MB of RAM. No use either.
So, it is either Vector Light or X-less system. BE CAREFUL: when upgarding apps, CHECK the dependencies. It often attempts to install Gnome dependencies that you do not need  (It will want to install Nautilus etc). So, before the actual upgrade, "uncheck" whatever is related to Gnome.
Cheers,
Drazen

[nightflier]

I would like it upgraded a bit to newer kernel and ext4 filesystem so I can use it on other machines as well.

Newer kernels are available here: http://vectorlinux.osuosl.org/veclinux-6.0/kernels/
I have tested the 2.6.31.8 version on Light and it works well, with ext4 support.

[Andy Price]

Something that's always nagging at the back of my mind when I read discussions about Linux distros for low-spec machines... Windows 95 would absolutely fly on a 200 MHz machine with 64 MB RAM and it would run MS Office XP just fine. Ok, I know it's 15 years out of date, not secure etc, so I'm not actually recommending anyone to use it, but what is it that makes even the lightest of distros seem like a resource hog compared to 95? Whatever it is, MS seem to have added it to their later versions of Windows too!

[M0E-lnx]

Or, you can always use a text-only login with dvtm and use things like elinks for (very limited) web browsing.

[haywire]

Well there is always damn small linux... Its linux with about the same resource requirements as windows 95 I suppose.
I tried to install it to hard drive once and all but gave up, its really a PITA to do it unless you just run it from live cd.

I'm kinda attached to standard vector, so I may just find another use for this old beast...

Steven

[drazen]

@haywire: I would play with Vector, taking even lighter WM. (Acc. to nightflier's advice). DSL is not active distribution acc. to Distrowatch any more, but "dormant" (Whatever that means). Actually it is not developed any more as the main developer left long time ago (2008) and started TinyCore. DeLi seems a better choice - if you must - as it is not "dormant" (Yet! Tha last version was released in the summer of 2008). It is supposed to work on 64 MB RAM and uses Pacman from Arch as a package manager which is a big+: http://www.delilinux.org/

@nightflier: Thank you! After I upgrade kernel, how to switch to ext4?

[M0E-lnx]

One of the guys that used to develop DSL is now doing the TinyCore project AFAIK, Dormant means headed to inactive... lol

[nightflier]

After I upgrade kernel, how to switch to ext4?

If you currently are using ext2 or ext3, they can be converted to ext4. Other filesystems would require a backup, re-format and restore.

[nightflier]

Windows 95 would absolutely fly on a 200 MHz machine with 64 MB RAM

Progress. W95 was sluggish on a 486 with 8 MB of RAM, whereas W3.1 was rather snappy on such a machine.

[haywire]

I had a computer with windows 3.1 and calmira (makes it look like windows 95/98) for a long time, it was a pentium pro 200mhz machine.
That was pretty snappy. For most of what I do (Fast tracker music tracker, a .wav audio editing program for editing samples, notepad)
Worked fine.

I really have this belief that an os should give most of the power and resources of the system to the user, literally as much as possible.
If I have to run an older os to get that philosophy to work then so be it. Right now I'm sitting on a quad core windows 7 machine.
No processes are open except this browser. One core is saying 60% use, the others jumping between 0 and 10 %.

Seems like alot of processor being zapped for what? A firewall and an antivirus program?  I think linux is far more effecient at handling resources, and also giving you more control over the system. Yes I know windows can be tweaked to remove alot of bloat and misuse of recources, but its very tedious to do so and very easy to really break it.

Steven

[drazen]

After I upgrade kernel, how to switch to ext4?

If you currently are using ext2 or ext3, they can be converted to ext4. Other filesystems would require a backup, re-format and restore.

@nightflier: If I use vector 6.0 light  and want to install a new kernel, I can handle that.
Please, advise or send a link so I can learn how can I THEN retroactively upgrade ext3 to ext4?
Thanks!
Regards,
Drazen

[M0E-lnx]

You can't just "upgrade" ext3 to ext4. ext4 support demands a kernel rebuild if in vl 6.0 light, which would mean you'd need to make serious system modifications.

if you must have ext4 support, an easier route would be to install 6.0 SOHO beta without the KDE environment, and install the icewm and icewm custom modifications package. That would get you to the around the same thing as VL-Light with ext4 support