Slackware 1994 to VectorLinux 2017!

[Doug Brunelle]

Hi all,
I've run various distros of Linux since about 1994, starting with slackware back then. Red Hat in 1995, Fedora, etc.. and have enjoyed them all, even though I don't consider myself very technically-savvy in any of them.  Lately, I've been running current flavors of Ubuntu, Lubuntu, and Linux Mint, when I don't *have to* run MessySoft Windows.  I have three laptop machines, and this one is an old (circa 2003) emachines M6809 which I'm typing on now.  It is fairly resource-constrained, and I was running Lubuntu on it, which runs pretty well. But I wanted to look around for a distro that is usable but even lighter on system resources.  I heard about Vector Linux, and thought I'd give it a try.

Other than a bit of a problem initially getting the graphical interface to run (this ATI Radeon 9600 wouldn't come up by default; even though the radeon module was being loaded during bootup, I had to do some twiddling with vxconf), VL x64 Light runs great on this laptop!  I have 1.25GB RAM on this system, and a Mobile Athlon 64 CPU.  Using Lubuntu and Firefox, the memory was all used up if I opened more than a couple of tabs in the browser. Lots of disk activity causing severe slowdowns with the virtual memory usage, etc.. 

But on VL, using Xombrero, I can have 4 or 5 tabs open, and a couple other apps running, and memory usage is only 500-600 MB; very little swap file usage, and the system remains responsive.  CPU load is generally lower in VL than Lubuntu, also. I've been monitoring system resources with HTop, a very useful program. So I have to say, this distro of Linux is excellent for older, CPU and RAM-constrained hardware. All of the system hardware was detected and configured correctly during setup, other than the video, including the Broadcom wireless card (!). And I like the fact that most of the settings are visible and easy to get to. 

So, I've come full-circle-- slackware in 1994, to a slackware-based distro in 2017..  :-)

--Doug

[M0E-lnx]

Nicely done Doug... Good thing you found your way around vxconf, I think you'll like VL.  We're just now rolling out 7.2 RC2 which will also come in the LIGHT edition.

Good to have you here.

[Doug Brunelle]

Thanks-- yes, I think I'll burn me a copy of the 7.2 RC2 LIGHT and give it a try.  Or rather, the standard edition, until the LIGHT version is available. --db

[nightflier]

Thanks-- yes, I think I'll burn me a copy of the 7.2 RC2 LIGHT and give it a try.  Or rather, the standard edition, until the LIGHT version is available. --db

We're keeping the focus on the Standard edition for testing, but .. -psst.. you can find Light RC2 in the same download location.

[Doug Brunelle]

Thanks for that info, too!  I have installed RC2 x64 STD edition here and am running that now.  Firefox is a pretty big CPU and RAM hog, so I installed Xombrero and am running that.. with this one tab open, CPU is averaging around 25-30%, and memory usage is at 27% at the moment.  It depends on what sites I have open in the tabs, too- Facebook is pretty much a hog, too.   I'm liking this VL STD desktop -- the brushed-metal screen background looks sharp, and the menus are great. Btw, I didn't have to mess around with the video card settings on this version of VL; graphics mode came up after the install; no problems. I think Lubuntu has met its match.  :-)

--db

[johnsiddle]

Hi all,
I've run various distros of Linux since about 1994, starting with slackware back then. Red Hat in 1995, Fedora, etc.. and have enjoyed them all, even though I don't consider myself very technically-savvy in any of them.  Lately, I've been running current flavors of Ubuntu, Lubuntu, and Linux Mint, when I don't *have to* run MessySoft Windows.  I have three laptop machines, and this one is an old (circa 2003) emachines M6809 which I'm typing on now.  It is fairly resource-constrained, and I was running Lubuntu on it, which runs pretty well. But I wanted to look around for a distro that is usable but even lighter on system resources.  I heard about Vector Linux, and thought I'd give it a try.

Other than a bit of a problem initially getting the graphical interface to run (this ATI Radeon 9600 wouldn't come up by default; even though the radeon module was being loaded during bootup, I had to do some twiddling with vxconf), VL x64 Light runs great on this laptop!  I have 1.25GB RAM on this system, and a Mobile Athlon 64 CPU.  Using Lubuntu and Firefox, the memory was all used up if I opened more than a couple of tabs in the browser. Lots of disk activity causing severe slowdowns with the virtual memory usage, etc.. 

But on VL, using Xombrero, I can have 4 or 5 tabs open, and a couple other apps running, and memory usage is only 500-600 MB; very little swap file usage, and the system remains responsive.  CPU load is generally lower in VL than Lubuntu, also. I've been monitoring system resources with HTop, a very useful program. So I have to say, this distro of Linux is excellent for older, CPU and RAM-constrained hardware. All of the system hardware was detected and configured correctly during setup, other than the video, including the Broadcom wireless card (!). And I like the fact that most of the settings are visible and easy to get to. 

So, I've come full-circle-- slackware in 1994, to a slackware-based distro in 2017..  :-)

--Doug

Hi Doug
How do you open multiple tabs in Xombrero, I have loaded it and I only get one tab unless I open a link within the first tab.
Regards  John

[nightflier]

Xombrero open new tab: Ctrl-Shift-T

[johnsiddle]

Magic...  Thank you.
John