pam wrote:try lubuntu 12.04 or 10.04 if you want a stringent, secure and up to date system. Smart thing since you could just install the latest browser/s with up-to date security versus using an archaic distro with unresolvable dependencies.
Never got that warm and fuzzy feeling with any Ubuntu that I've tried, if you know what I mean. Nothing against it, it just hasn't been for me. Edubuntu, maybe - doesn't it use Xfce instead of Gnome3, Unity, cellphone DE, or any of the other various DEs? I can't remember offhand. The time I tried LXDE it seemed a little too light for my tastes. Still, one will do what one must, lol.
pam wrote:Debian 4 may work like a galloping horse, but im unaware of its current state.....i had tried it on a pentium 3 with 458 megs sd-ram.
That's impressive. I knew there were more than a few old computers around, still. And I had always assumed that a lot of them were running some form of linux (even though I keep reading that linux users run new, fast, powerful rigs), because I figured the kind of person who is likely to actually find a use for an old computer is probably intelligent, creative, and "techy." IDK how true any of that is, but that's my guess.
I actually didn't even know about Debian until after I found Ultimate Edition (2.3, at the time) one day, installed it for whatever reason, and thought, "Wow, why didn't someone tell me about this sooner?
" Previous to that, my only linux experience was with Mandrake 8.1. I read about and ordered their Powerpack Edition, which came with a period of support, and sounded great. Due to an issue right after registering for said support - I lost both that password and the password for the email account I used to register - I ended up not getting any support and nothing I could think of, including offering to mail them the box and the covers to both manuals that came with it, would get them to give me the support (which wouldn't have been much, I'm sure, but it was the reason I bought the package in the first place, so...), and that experience soured me on linux for several years. Luckily, I found Ultimate Edition. Then I read about Ubuntu, saw that - at the time, at least - their distros fit on CDs, which I had, so I downloaded and tried them too, but never cared for. I read about Debian at about that point in time, but read that their stable branch was "old," and compared to my Ultimate Edition experience, "old" sounded, well, [i]old[/ii]. And their unstable (testing? I can't remember) branch, I had read that occasionally it could be quite unstable, indeed
. So I never ended up trying it. Maybe some time in the near future might be a good time to do so.
pam wrote:Ultimate Edition 3.4 lite might still be pretty heavy for your system and because of mate desktop environment...Lxde or Xfce might splice through if could install them.
You may well be correct. Nothing against Ultimate Edition - I really like it - but even though I found the older versions ran fine on my computers (at the time, at least), I always thought they would be happier given room to run. And that someone like me, still pretty ignorant (but s l o w l y learning a thing here and there - just not, apparently, where graphics configurations are concerned, lol) and with lesser hardware, might be better off with a barebones setup that I could add what I really needed to, as opposed to a setup that had it all and trying to remove bits and pieces that I felt that I really didn't need. Seems safer (theoritically, at least).
Example: I installed Ultimate 2.7 last night before laying down and trying to sleep a little. IIRC, ram usage was closer to 400 megs than the <200 that I had been seeing with Mint/Xfce. "No problem," I thought, "I'll just remove some of the things that I know I either have no use for or can do without." I popped open the applet that shows the resources (memory, cpu, swap) in one tab and the running processes in another. Bluetooth only used 1.5 meg or so, but none of my devices have Bluetooth, so I killed that. Yarssr, while something that I use, isn't important, and it was almost 20 megs I think, so I kiiled that. Gnome Do... That one has
always annoyed me; one both 2.6 and 2.7, whenever I booted into the desktop, that SoB would push my CPU to 100% and hold it there for some time, and it uses a big chunk of ram. It pops up at every boot, I have to press Escape to get it to go away (and it's still running), and if I don't wait until the CPU usage drops before doing so, the CPU stays pegged half the time even after I kill the thing (not sure why?). So... Bang, it was dead, too, lol. There went around 40 megs, or ~10% of used memory. "Nice," I thought, "I'll leave Yarssr so that I have the ability to use it at each boot and then kill it manually, but Bluetooth and Gnome Do (the entire concept of which I find invasive, unnecessary, and unwanted and would kill even if it only used a meg or two) have got to go, so I'll uninstall them." I ran Synaptic Package Manager, clicked on the thing to display only installed components, and typed bluetooth into the search box. I saw a short list of Bluetooth-related files, selected them all, and tried to mark them for complete removal. Turns out, that would have taken something that seemed necessary (Network something or other, I believe?). So I canceled that. Then I did the same thing with Gnome Do and I'm pretty sure that one of the things IT wanted to remove was called "Ultimate Edition." That... I think Ultimate Edition probably requires Ultimate Edition
. So I failed to remove either of those things.
pam wrote:Still nothing beats puppy and its runs off ram too...
I considered that (and have not completely ruled it out). But there's light... and then there's flyweight. Still, it is said to run on older computers. Although, if it runs in RAM like a live distro (I guess that's what it is, albeit with a really neat form of persistence, being able to save changes to a CD or DVD every time you do a shutdown), wouldn't that severely limit an already limited amount of memory? And then there's the question of websites: I found both a puppylinux . org and a puppylinux . com. I looked at links on each page and neither seems to acknowledge - or link to - the other. Are they separate entities? Is one correct/official and the other a knockoff? Some kind of phishing site or other scam (perhaps offering an "adulterated" OS that'll phone home with my information)? Seems unlikely, but... So I've been a little leery of it.
As far as nothing beating it, if you are speaking in terms of resource requirements, there is always browserlinux . com, lol - current version is 93 megs. It includes Firefox and, err, Firefox. (Actually, I think it also includes a music player and Flash.) I have an old 128meg flash drive that came with some free-to-air satellite receiver or other that I got once when I was into that hobby, it would fit on that. It would, I assume, allow me to surf the Interwebs, possibly. If there was room for FBReader and a few selected eBooks (I'm a heavy reader, but cannot see well enough for regular-print books and some days, like Mom, I have trouble holding a book for more than a few minutes at a time, but eBooks don't need to be held and the font size is adjustable, win:win) and possibly an email client, I'd be able to survive. I could even drop the email client if needs must and use <YUCK!> webmail. Only... Neither my desktop nor the loaner laptop have the ability to boot from a USB device. Curses, foiled again, lol. But it seems like something to keep in mind for a portable/secure (as in, nothing on the host's hard drive) web browsing experience. And it got me to thinking, would it be possible to create a "pure" eBook reader "OS?" I've got lots of eBooks and in the Winter when I have no work, no (paid) entertainment, and precious little else, I can easily read a book each day. I recently learned that I could request a free DVD from Project Gutenberg. They're basically public-domain titles, meaning old, meaning I've already read a lot of them, but the DVD's label states "29,000+ books," so I haven't read even a fraction of a percent of them
.
Rambling. The usual couple of hours of sleep doesn't seem to help much when you've got the flu, I guess. I think I should get back inside, try to eat something today, and then crawl back under the covers for a while. Y'all have a great day!
pam wrote:Driver Experiment
Maybe I should have titled this thread something like "Options for Broken Down, Old Computers?" Or... "Driver is Driving Everyone Crazy Again!"
Actually, maybe I should have requested that this thread end up in a forum that is more general in nature. I originally meant to just ask about Ultimate Edition 3.4 Lite, specifically. But then... Well, it seemed silly to create a separate thread for each OS/question. I don't know what would have been best. I did get it moved out of the "Post your 3.4 screenshots here" thread. Wasn't sure how I managed to post in there in the first place, but then I saw that the title of that thread (in the thread list) was somewhat different and didn't mention posting screenshots at all. <SHRUGS> Go figure. Hmm... Rambling, again. I'll just press this button now, shall I?