[ltp] Linux for old Thinkpads: Slackware? Vector? Zenwalk? Something else?

[cr]

On Sunday 01 January 2006 15:18, Nate Bargmann wrote:
> * Alex Wenzel <cacx1999@gmx.net> [2005 Dec 31 19:06 -0600]:
> > Hi,
> >
> > (I already posted this, but since it didn't show up for almost 24 hours,
> > I presume the mail got lost. If it shows up twice for others, I
> > apologize. Happy New Year, everybody!)
> >
> > I'd like to install Linux on two old Thinkpads (760XL/P166MMX/104MB and
> > 390E/probably PII-300/128 or 192 MB) and thought a Slackware-based distro
> > would be the best (only?) place to start. But which one? Genuine
> > Slackware, Vector, Zenwalk are only examples.
>
> Slackware or Debian are good  choices.  I ran Debian Testing on my 390E
> with 192 MiB of RAM up until February of this year (broken hinge so I
> bought a T23) and it worked fine.  I used IceWM and things ran
> reasonably well.  I also ran Debian up until a few years ago on a
> 760ED.
>
> I don't know that Debian would be necessarily slower than Slackware,
> but it may be useful to build a leaner kernel.  Debian can be made
> quite lean with judicious package selection.  The packaging system
> takes up quite a bit of disk space and Slackware's trade-off is that it
> installs the header files with each package.
>
> I recently put Sarge on a Compaq Armada 1750 and it runs fine with
> IceWM and Ethereal as a network monitor.  I'm not afraid of the later
> 2. 6 kernels on older hardware as they seem to be quite efficient.
>
> Have fun!
>
> - Nate >>
>

I ran Debian Woody quite successfully on my Thinkpad i1200 (500MHz, 64MB RAM).   
When I upgraded to Sarge recently I found 64MB was not enough for the default 
Gnome desktop (and probably not enough for KDE either).    So I installed 
Windowmaker instead and it ran fine just so long as I didn't load too many 
heavy apps (Quanta, a browser, gftp, kppp etc) all at once.   

I've since upgraded the RAM to 192mb and still running Windowmaker - from the 
performance I'd guess it would probably handle the default Gnome desktop OK.     
500MHz seems to be enough speed for most things, the memory is more of a 
limitation, but 192MB seems to be plenty.

More lightweight distros that work OK are Morphix Light GUI and Damn Small 
Linux.   Vector probably should too.

cr