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Linux OS for an old laptop?

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legomyego
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06 Aug 2012, 12:45 pm

Hi...i found an old computer in the garbage that seems to work perfectly well but the cord must be plugged in.

Anyways...was wondering what kind of linux OS might be good to run on an old laptop with limited resources...like half a gig or ram and 40gb hard drive.



VIDEODROME
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06 Aug 2012, 1:16 pm

Actually, I had an old laptop handed to me and I have a similar question.

I'm taking college classes for computers and would like to experiment with this computer. I should learn more about servers and wonder if putting Ubuntu on it would be a good idea.



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06 Aug 2012, 1:29 pm

Archlinux. :)


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06 Aug 2012, 2:07 pm

I used a version called E-Live at a suggestion of a co worker-it works pretty good-the user interface has an Apple feel to it.


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06 Aug 2012, 2:21 pm

Radiofixr wrote:
I used a version called E-Live at a suggestion of a co worker-it works pretty good-the user interface has an Apple feel to it.


I rather like the Enlightenment window manager - I think I'll give that a try. Not a big fan of Debian-based systems though.


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06 Aug 2012, 2:23 pm

I have Ubuntu Studio x64 12.04 on a stick. I'm guessing here. If your old computer has a usb port, you can probably fix it in the bios to boot from the stick. It'll then just view your 40gb drive as storage space. It works well with my computer, but mine's up to date.


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06 Aug 2012, 3:35 pm

What are the specs on the computer? I would be hard pressed to run Ubuntu or Arch on old hardware with limited memory, but you might want to try Lubuntu, Crunchbang, or something else fairly light to run on older hardware with limited memory resources.


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06 Aug 2012, 5:12 pm

you also mifgt want to try puppy or damn small linux. then, there's always the old standby, slackware.


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legomyego
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06 Aug 2012, 8:17 pm

gonna try libuntu....

thanks all for the suggestions...

i am not sure on the ram....cannot open the bios? =/ have tried every key on the board at start to try and open it....will only give me a boot menu.
I dont know how the person prior to me tweeked it out.

40gb ram and has windows xp sticker on it...so im guessing around half a gig.



2fefd8
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07 Aug 2012, 1:54 am

Fogman wrote:
What are the specs on the computer? I would be hard pressed to run Ubuntu or Arch on old hardware with limited memory, but you might want to try Lubuntu, Crunchbang, or something else fairly light to run on older hardware with limited memory resources.


Actually, Arch runs well on old hardware provided you set it up correctly. The base Arch installation is quite minimal so it really all depends on what you install on top of that.