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ubuntu on old laptop?

post #1 of 14
11/1/05 at 3:40am
Thread Starter 
hey i want to install ubuntu on my laptop (specs in sig). when you first boot the ubuntu install cd, it asks if you want a server install. is this just a standard install without a window manager? i'd like to be able to install xfce because gnome will be too slow on it.

what do you guys think?


thanks
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post #2 of 14
11/1/05 at 11:03am
i'd install the regular version. The server does not install xwindows. install whatever window manager you want afterwards. You'll probably also want a bunch of the gnome programs too so you may not want to completely remove it.
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post #3 of 14
11/1/05 at 8:42pm
Thread Starter 
the laptop will probably barely be able to boot gnome in the first place... i can try though.

is it ok to have an ext3 or reiserfs filesystem on it even though it's so old? most distro's recomend using ext2 on old hardware.
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post #4 of 14
11/1/05 at 9:15pm
ext3 and reiserfs are journaling filesystems, the overhead is just more i/o operations, but at the sake of not having to fsck everytime you don't shutdown properly.

I don't know how painful that will be on your 366 p2, but you can install ext3 and disable journaling support later if it comes down to it.
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post #5 of 14
11/2/05 at 11:18am
On a 366 ext3 will most likely be fine, I have run it on a 500 without much problem, well worth it for the journaling.

Seablade
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post #6 of 14
11/4/05 at 11:34am
Thread Starter 
ok thanks, i'll try it out on ext3 and see how it goes with xfce4.
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post #7 of 14
11/4/05 at 4:56pm
that computer is pretty weak to run ubuntu. there is a distro out there called DSL (Damn Small Linux) designed to run on machines just like yours (slow proc, not much ram). the entire OS has a footprint of about 32 - 64 MB of RAM
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post #8 of 14
11/5/05 at 2:44am
Eh my 500 wasnt much better than that computer and ran Ubuntu decently... That was Hoary though not breezy though I doubt its gotten to much worse, they do a good job with their package selections for a general purpose distro.

Seablade
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post #9 of 14
11/5/05 at 9:00pm
there are minimal speed issues going from Hoary --> Breezy
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post #10 of 14
11/6/05 at 3:35pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by tlo
that computer is pretty weak to run ubuntu. there is a distro out there called DSL (Damn Small Linux) designed to run on machines just like yours (slow proc, not much ram). the entire OS has a footprint of about 32 - 64 MB of RAM
i ran dsl on it for a while, but i HATED fluxbox. i just coudn't get used to it.. right now i'm running elive (enlightenment e17) on it and it's running really nicely, but i want to try ubuntu on it. i still haven't had the time to try it out, hopefully i'll have time to do it either today or tomorrow.
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post #11 of 14
11/12/05 at 4:10am
Thread Starter 
ok, i finally did the install. the server installed fine, then i installed xfce4 after editing my sources.list. what do i need to install in order to get X running? also, do i need to install kdm or gdm?

thanks
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post #12 of 14
11/12/05 at 4:50pm
Thread Starter 
never mind that, i googled it and found it. for some reason, xfce wont let me open a terminal. i click on the icon and nothing happens. all the other programs i've tried to open work fine. any help with that besides reinstalling? exiting X every time i want to install something is a pita.
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post #13 of 14
11/13/05 at 7:46am
Just for curiositys sake, how does it perform?
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post #14 of 14
11/13/05 at 9:32pm
Thread Starter 
well, with terminal not working properly i haven't used it much (yet). from what i've gathered so far though it's fairly snappy, or as snappy as you can expect from a p2 with only 96mb of ram (i really should think about upgrading!!).
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