Help: Linux advise please.

**Flyingpony** · 9th June 2006, 15:01

Got 96mb ram, which current version of Linux will happily work within this limit?

Linux is renowned for having a light footprint, like that of Windows 98, but nearly all current versions have broken this feature and will therefore page for eternity once fired up, assuming the GUI even did!

This is my x-th attempt of getting Linux up and running smoothly. Hardware resource is Intel P2 300Mhz 98mb ram & 4gb hdd.

Think it's currently got Vector Linux installed but failed to get sound working - have had it working under Red Hat 5 so that surprised me since they're both Linux. Recently have also tried Gentoo but it paged to swap after the GUI started up.

A dude at Uni said try Puppy Linux. Had a quick peak and it's a 60mb ISO download and needs 64mb ram to run, so this looks finally to be the ticket I'm looking for.

But ... I really need to have sound & full 600x800 resolution as to play 2D games which are available on Linux. Since it doesn't have a modem, it'll have to support 10/100 Ethernet connection to a Fat32 shared folder on my Windows 2000 box. It'll probably also need a dos emulator for the games. Don't mind downloading programs to meet this need, but will have to figure out how to install them since I’ve never done that before on Linux.

Even though I've been playing with this dream of having Linux running on that computer for 5 years, I've never got past the install or configuration stage because of problems that couldn't be readily resolved, got too frustrated or simply Linux needed more resources than the computer had to offer.

Games will be either native Linux or native DOS. Would Wine work on this computer?

Please help, which current version will work and allow me to make this old computer into a lean mean 2D (lightweight 3D) gaming machine!

Thanks!

**Pathos** · 9th June 2006, 15:39

Have you tried getting help at the VL forums ?

If you weren't considering wine I would totally recommend Damn Small Linux. I have it running on a 100mhz 22MB ram machine, sound seems to work out of the box, it has dosbox, mame and other games in the repositories which take two clicks to install and uses < 32MB ram. It is a live cd however so has some oddities even though you can install it.

However installing games on DSL that are not in the repositories can be hell due to all the dependencies not present.

Which games are you thinking about ?

**dhunt** · 9th June 2006, 16:31

Originally Posted by Flyingpony

Got 96mb ram, which current version of Linux will happily work within this limit?

Linux is renowned for having a light footprint, like that of Windows 98, but nearly all current versions have broken this feature and will therefore page for eternity once fired up, assuming the GUI even did!

This is my x-th attempt of getting Linux up and running smoothly. Hardware resource is Intel P2 300Mhz 98mb ram & 4gb hdd.

Think it's currently got Vector Linux installed but failed to get sound working - have had it working under Red Hat 5 so that surprised me since they're both Linux. Recently have also tried Gentoo but it paged to swap after the GUI started up.

A dude at Uni said try Puppy Linux. Had a quick peak and it's a 60mb ISO download and needs 64mb ram to run, so this looks finally to be the ticket I'm looking for.

But ... I really need to have sound & full 600x800 resolution as to play 2D games which are available on Linux. Since it doesn't have a modem, it'll have to support 10/100 Ethernet connection to a Fat32 shared folder on my Windows 2000 box. It'll probably also need a dos emulator for the games. Don't mind downloading programs to meet this need, but will have to figure out how to install them since I’ve never done that before on Linux.

Even though I've been playing with this dream of having Linux running on that computer for 5 years, I've never got past the install or configuration stage because of problems that couldn't be readily resolved, got too frustrated or simply Linux needed more resources than the computer had to offer.

Games will be either native Linux or native DOS. Would Wine work on this computer?

Please help, which current version will work and allow me to make this old computer into a lean mean 2D (lightweight 3D) gaming machine!

Thanks!

Go with something like debian. You will learn more as it has a higher learning curve and you have lots more control over what gets put on your computer. Or if you have lots of time on your hands run gentoo (Stage 1 install probably a week or two to install on your computer, I had a gentoo laptop PI 100Mhz working quite successfully a couple years ago) then you have ultimate control over what gets put on the computer. Debian is probably the way to go or maybe even Ubuntu. Don't run kde or gnome, stick with something like fluxbox as a window manager and you'll save lots of resources.

**TerminalAddict** · 9th June 2006, 16:43

for specs like that I would go with debian (which I hate) or gentoo (which I love

)
gentoo would take you about 3.5 brazillion years to install however

**Lias** · 9th June 2006, 17:02

Originally Posted by TerminalAddict

debian (which I hate)

Debian is the anti christ..

**Mental Trousers** · 9th June 2006, 17:16

Debian or Slackware (my choice) with either XFCE or Fluxbox. Don't go anywhere near Gnome or KDE

**MrMelon** · 9th June 2006, 18:42

I ran a p200 with 64mb of ram and a 4 gig drive with debian as a server for years and it was fine. Just give it a minimal build. Will it be used as a workstation or a server? If you're running it as a desktop with x windows some window managers will work way better than others with a low spec system like that.

It's a bit of a steep learning curve to begin with, but the sooner you get the fundamentals of linux down, the better.

Inspire run a good debian mirror which has the cd image you'll need to download. http://mirror.inspire.net.nz/debian-cd/

**MrMelon** · 9th June 2006, 18:43

Originally Posted by Lias

Debian is the anti christ..

Apt-get owns you... so hard.

**B-rad** · 9th June 2006, 21:24

Go with debian, might be a bit hard to get the gui going though.

apt-get

**TerminalAddict** · 10th June 2006, 00:27

Originally Posted by MrMelon

Apt-get owns you... so hard.

not to sound too geeky but .....

emerge -C debian && emerge -uD --newuse gentoo

**Flyingpony** · 16th June 2006, 10:35

Thanks all.

The computer is a going to be used as a workstation. Have no particular game in mind, just a desire to play 2D games.

Will give Vector Linux one more try. If it doesn't go I'll toast it and probably give DSL a swing followed by Debian, and then Slackware. After that and still no go, think I'll start rotating the CD's and try them again.

**dhunt** · 16th June 2006, 13:04

Originally Posted by Flyingpony

Thanks all.

The computer is a going to be used as a workstation. Have no particular game in mind, just a desire to play 2D games.

Check out digger. It's been remastered to run on new computers. I use to play on our 8086 laptop years and years ago.

**Wasp** · 16th June 2006, 13:10

i ran redhat 9 on a p400 with 64 mbs of ram as a router with my old usb adsl - i put an extra 256mb piece in it whilst setting it up though.....

**dhunt** · 16th June 2006, 13:12

Originally Posted by Wasp

i ran redhat 9 on a p400 with 64 mbs of ram as a router with my old usb adsl - i put an extra 256mb piece in it whilst setting it up though.....

I've got linux running on my Wireless Access point 32MB RAM, 200Mhz processor. It's very cool being able to ssh into and install/config stuff. Just need to put a big USB harddrive on it to really have fun.

**Cajun** · 16th June 2006, 14:32

anyone know if those usb wifi things work very well with linux?

i have a machine, which can not handle pci slots, but got usb slots, and so wanna be able to connect it to the wifi land, to do a bit of hostings

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