Need linux for P1 lappie

[quik1]

Hi all. I need to put linux on a Acer extensa 390c (Think its a P1) has a small HDD, cd rom, and thats about it. I know its very old, but want to give it to some1 to mess around with. Basically only need the OS and office app (word, excell, powerpoint) I know i can use open office, but is there a way to strip it down?
Please dont laugh @ me for using something that has to be in a museum! I had my laptop stolen countless times. If they steal this......... well who cares!
:o

[sn3rd]

Try www.xubuntu.org


Xubuntu is intended for users with less-powerful computers or those who seek a highly efficient desktop environment on faster systems.[1] It features mostly GTK+ applications.

[Ryder_JHB]

Have a look at Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org) or Puppy Linux (http://www.puppylinux.org)

[Kasyx]

If people don't stop referring to laptops as "lappies" in this section I swear I will kill someone.

[.Froot.]

If people don't stop referring to laptops as "lappies" in this section I swear I will kill someone.

Hoosaaa. Hoosaa my china.... <Bad Boys 2.....> :D

[milomak]

DSL a good shout. Was it The_Librarian who used a distro that booted from a USB stick? You could use that and pull in the OOo components you need as well as the xserver I would guess.

[spiderz]

P1 laptop will still have USB 1.0 which is dead slow (+-1mb/s). Rather try sumthing from the hdd, even if it is small.

[Elfreako]

I'd put on Gentoo, I have always been amazed at what it runs on.

[Coza]

Run puppy from the hdd. you will be surprised how fast your p1 will be. Comes with every app (just about) that you could possibly want.

[milomak]

P1 laptop will still have USB 1.0 which is dead slow (+-1mb/s). Rather try sumthing from the hdd, even if it is small.


I was saying that there was a distro that was installed to a USB stick which would mean it's likely to be small enough to run on the laptop without needing much resources.

[andres101]

I recently installed the latest xubuntu on PII 400 notebook and according to the user, it runs faster than the original Win98... Not to mention perfectly stable.

If you feel it is too slow, try DSL of puppy.

If you have the time and would like to learn more about Linux than you probably need to know, go for Gentoo, otherwise stick to the easier distro's.

[smokey]

So DSL/Puppy/Xubuntu would be good for an AthlonXP 1800+ with 256meg RAM. No int usage left so I need to ask... do they look nice and are they user friendly. Don't really want to bugger around too much with that old pc, just for downloading and music/movies. Win XP does the job, but was thinking I should give Linux a go.

[koffiejunkie]

I used to run Vector linux on an old Toshiba P1-100 with 16mb or 32mb of memory (can't remember). It ran pretty well. Vector is designed, not so much to be a minimal distro (like DSL/Puppy, say) but to still be suited to older hardware with limited resources. Desktop integration was pretty good too.

[koffiejunkie]

So DSL/Puppy/Xubuntu would be good for an AthlonXP 1800+ with 256meg RAM. No int usage left so I need to ask... do they look nice and are they user friendly. Don't really want to bugger around too much with that old pc, just for downloading and music/movies. Win XP does the job, but was thinking I should give Linux a go.

smokey, you can run anything you like on a 1800+ AthlonXP (except Vista maybe - har har har :p). I had office desktops at a client running on SUSE 10.1 on sub-1GHz Celerons and Pentium-IIIs with 256MB memory. If you throw more ram at it it'll run even better.

[koffiejunkie]

If people don't stop referring to laptops as "lappies" in this section I swear I will kill someone.

Lappie! Lappie! Lappie! :p

Actually, the use of "laptop" is incorrect for today's beasts. This is a laptop:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1182
and
http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html

So called because you can put it on your lap without completely cutting off your blood flow. Not that you'd want to - being as long as they are, the balance is poor and unless you can support the back against something, they keep slipping off. Also uncomfortable to use since the keyboard and screen are so far forward. Also, if you look carefully, you'll see that both require external power.

"Notebook" is the correct term for the things we've been using for the last 10 or so years. If memory serves me well, it came about when they became about the same size as a writing pad (ignore the thickness). Found a reference on wikipedia:


Laptop computers began to be called notebooks when they reached a relatively small size in the 1990s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notebook#Possible_electronic_successors)

[Ghost02]

Lappie! Lappie! Lappie! :p

Actually, the use of "laptop" is incorrect for today's beasts. This is a laptop:

http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?st=1&c=1182
and
http://oldcomputers.net/grid1101.html

So called because you can put it on your lap without completely cutting off your blood flow. Not that you'd want to - being as long as they are, the balance is poor and unless you can support the back against something, they keep slipping off. Also uncomfortable to use since the keyboard and screen are so far forward. Also, if you look carefully, you'll see that both require external power.

"Notebook" is the correct term for the things we've been using for the last 10 or so years. If memory serves me well, it came about when they became about the same size as a writing pad (ignore the thickness). Found a reference on wikipedia:



LOL one day we'll look back at today's supercomputers and think how could we work on such ancient stuff.

[wezhira]

you def have to give vector linux a go i say it takes down xubuntu plus its fast too compensate for less ram i normally put alot of swap so still runs fairly faster