My first flirtation with Linux in Off Topic

ID:36081
 
Oct 24 2007, 6:05 pm
I have a laptop the company let me use about a decade ago, give or take a couple years. Its installed OS is Windows 95 and it has a mammoth 32 MB of RAM. (At the time, it wasn't half bad!)

Today I decided I'd try putting Linux on it. I did research to find out the most newbie-friendly Unix variants. At work I burned a Mandriva Linux CD, and at home I tried it out on the laptop. Result: failure. It won't even run from the CD, let alone allow me to install it to the laptop.

A little Web research revealed that 32 MB is not enough for many versions of Linux. I had higher hopes for it, considering that the windowing and multitasking Amiga OS ran just fine in 512K. I may try burning a "Damn Small Linux" or "Puppy Linux" CD sooner or later, but for the moment, my brief spurt of enthusiasm for Linux is waning as fast as it waxed.
#1 Oct 24 2007, 7:03 pm
Tell me about it.

Still, there's far better things to put on ancient laptops (I have one slightly better than yours- running Windows 98, oh yeah!) than linux- namely, the original Rayman, and Doom 1 and 2.
#2 Oct 24 2007, 7:24 pm
Also Thief and Thief 2.

Most modern user-friendly Linux distros are, well, modern, and are thus designed to run on reasonably modern computers. That shouldn't really come as a surprise. There are of course variants with lesser requirements.
#3 Oct 24 2007, 8:00 pm
Linux is very pretty. On my third week and I havn't been back on windows in two.

http://files.byondhome.com/Texter/newss.png
#4 Oct 25 2007, 6:26 am
32MB is a very small amount of RAM, so I'm not at all surprised it wouldn't run. DSL and Puppy will work for you, though, and they have pretty decent interfaces.

Many installers run "Live" meaning that they run the OS right off the CD before installing, this, as you might guess, takes a little RAM to do. Ubuntu has 2 CD versions. One "Live" version and one traditional CLI installer(very GUIish CLI, but CLI none the less). The requirements go from 128mb to 64mb just by swapping out that CD.

Perhaps one day the major Linux distos will have nothing better to do than to streamline the basic parts to work on old machines again, but as it stands, a computer from 1995 us not their target market.
#5 Oct 25 2007, 7:47 am
Knoppix is nice! :)
#6 Oct 29 2007, 11:27 am
I object- this post has no actual flirting nor any pictures w/bikinis. Either Linux or Gug would work.
#7 Oct 29 2007, 4:04 pm
Texter wrote:
Linux is very pretty. On my third week and I havn't been back on windows in two.

http://files.byondhome.com/Texter/newss.png

That is Linux, but it has a graphical BYOND.

How'd you do that?
#8 Oct 29 2007, 4:07 pm
I second DD.
#9 Oct 29 2007, 4:09 pm
http://i33.photobucket.com/albums/d79/hotpink0173/ Screenshot.png

That's my linux desktop as of now, I wonder why it's on the girlfriends photobucket though.

EDIT : no idea why the pic is so small :(
#10 Oct 29 2007, 4:15 pm
Using WINE. A Windows application layer for Linux. It's still a bit picky though, and only 3.5 runs in a simi-stable state, but I was able to spend a night in Chat with 4.0 WINE'd.
#11 Oct 29 2007, 4:26 pm
http://i22.tinypic.com/33d8e4i.png

That's my Kubuntu desktop... trying to play Murder Mansion but the host has 56k :(
#12 Oct 29 2007, 7:24 pm
Jmurph wrote:
I object- this post has no actual flirting nor any pictures w/bikinis. Either Linux or Gug would work.

I'd like to oblige you, but I don't have the dexterity to shave or wax my own back, so I think a bikini is out of the question for now.
#13 Oct 29 2007, 7:27 pm
By the way, an update: I burned Puppy Linux to CD, and even that tiny distribution wouldn't work on my archaic laptop, but I did try Puppy Linux on an old PC at work and it was great. Very simple to set up, too. Even the Internet access was a breeze. It also played MP3's and YouTube videos, and managed a USB flash drive, with no problem. Two thumbs up for Puppy Linux!

I may try to get a spare monitor so I can set up my trusty old NEC Ready (my last desktop, with 8 years of faithful service) as a downstairs computer.