Don't throw away that older computer!

[ckaihatsu]

I've been trying out different types of Linux distributions -- they've come a long way in just a few years and are now serious competition for the mainstays of the commercial computer market -- Microsoft and Apple. All of the things that have conventionally been done with commercial hardware and software can now be done the same way, but with older, "obsolete" PCs and open-source, free software that has been developed and produced from collective voluntary efforts.

(I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention Java, a "virtual machine" layer for Java apps that runs on top of Linux, Windows, or Mac. The same Java app can be passed from machine to machine and will run exactly the same way as long as a Java virtual machine has been installed on the computer.)

The "index" for all of this is DistroWatch.com -- it's good for getting a sense of just how variegated and d.i.y. this whole Linux thing is.

My current favorite -- and self-proclaimed as the 4th most-popular OS -- is Linux Mint 8, a fairly recent development that is very easy to install and use for the average person, as well as being very stable and customizable.

For older computers there's a variation of Linux called Puppy Linux that is *philosophically* opposed to the bloat that we're all used to seeing with major applications. Each distribution of Puppy Linux is stripped down to bare essentials, with a rudimentary graphical interface, making it lean and quick. What's more, it does something special -- by being so small in size (100 MB for the entire installation!) it's able to *load itself into memory (RAM)* on startup and operate at *quick* computer-memory-based speeds, instead of at conventionally slower speeds (going to the hard drive to retrieve each new thing while in use). Add-on software packages are "regulated" to maintain the lean-and-fast paradigm -- *smaller* versions of common Linux apps are released specifically for Puppy Linux.

I'm currently *very* impressed with NOP Puppy Linux 4.3.1 -- it's only a 100 MB download. Read about it here:


http://puppylinux.org/wikka/NOP

http://puppylinux.org/news/puplets/new-nop-puppy/


You can download it from here:


http://brainwavedesigncentral.net/mike/index.php?dir=Puplets%2F

[¿Que?]

I've been meaning to have a look at backtrack. Old computers are good for setting up home networks and testing out various tools. Something I should do more of....

[Foldered]

Do you know what the wireless networking capabilities are with NOP? I have a laptop that is on its last legs and would probably run smooth with something like Puppy Linux, but if it won't recognize my USB WiFi adaptor it would be pointless.

[ckaihatsu]

I hear ya.... Offhand I can't speak from personal experience, but whichever type of Linux you go with will allow you to boot up from the CD itself without touching anything you already have on the internal hard drive. In this way you'd be able to try setting up the (wireless) networking, a feature which *is* commonly built in.

Btw, here's a quick tip: There's a terrific tiny Java app called FTPGoServer that will allow you to easily transfer files back and forth on your networked computers (on a home network set up with a router).

[Paul Cockshott]

What browser does puppy linux use, most of them seem to have a minimum memory footprint of some 20 megs which seems pretty excessive.

[ckaihatsu]

---




At every turn, Puppy chooses small, lightweight applications. For example, for office work the system includes the Abiword word processor, the Gnumeric spreadsheet, and GsView to display PDF and Postscript files. These applications meet the needs of most users, yet they are way more resource efficient than their Microsoft Office and OpenOffice.org alternatives. Since they are file format compatible with these competing applications, they make reasonable replacements.

Here’s another example of this principle at work. The default browser Puppy uses, called Dillo, runs in only 350 kilobytes. Contrast this to current versions of Internet Explorer or Firefox, which can easily consume many megabytes of memory. Yet for most users’ needs Dillo works just fine. If for some reason you prefer some other browser, you can easily add Firefox, SeaMonkey, Mozilla, Opera, Flock, or almost any other browser. Get the idea?

http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/articles/puppy_linux_fast_yet_full_featured

[leftace53]

:thumbup1:
I haven't tried Puppy, it definitely seems like something that would be good for my old school desktop, and will be giving it a go sometime. I've used dillo before though, its good for a lightweight browser.

[ckaihatsu]

Yeah, for all of this stuff it's important to keep in mind that a computer is just a fancy *tool* -- what counts is what you want to use it *for*.

[ckaihatsu]

I like that Puppy's built-in apps will cover most people's regular needs -- and then for quick, easy extendability I'd say download the latest Java -- jre1.6.0_18-1.pet -- and then run Java apps on top of Puppy....

[Glenn Beck]

I use an old ASUS laptop that was hot shit back in '04 with Linux Mint 8 Fluxbox Edition and it runs brilliantly; I haven't tried their new LXDE build. Lightweight linux distros are brilliant to bring back an old PC as basic working machine.

[Foldered]

I use an old ASUS laptop that was hot shit back in '04 with Linux Mint 8 Fluxbox Edition and it runs brilliantly; I haven't tried their new LXDE build. Lightweight linux distros are brilliant to bring back an old PC as basic working machine.
I might have to give this a shot. My laptop runs, I just prefer it with linux, but it actually runs XP better than other distros I've used.

[¿Que?]

Do you know what the wireless networking capabilities are with NOP? I have a laptop that is on its last legs and would probably run smooth with something like Puppy Linux, but if it won't recognize my USB WiFi adaptor it would be pointless.
Have you set up wireless on linux before?

There are basically two ways to go. The first, is hope someone has written a driver for your wifi adapter. If they have, and it's likely someone has, then you'll probably have an easier time getting all to work.

Otherwise, you have to use a linux wrapper for the windows driver, which is often buggy.

In either case, you might run into problems that don't seem to make sense. For instance, I had a pcmci adapter for an old laptop, which had a driver. If I configured the card with the gnome or kde tool, or some other graphical tool, it wouldn't work. But if I changed the exact same option in the configuration file, it did work.

This was about last year, with Debian I believe.

[Q]

I'm not sure how "lightweight" it is for older hardware (older than ~5 years), but Ubuntu is known for making things Just Work. Wireless networking is something which is typically done within two clicks for example. Might be worth checking out, even if you run it on older hardware.

[DecDoom]

I already use OpenSUSE 11.2 (and Windows 7) on my main desktop, but I have an older (think '97-'98) computer that I've tried some lightweight Linux distros on. More often than not, it either can't boot the distro, or when it can boot it, it's ridiculously slow for a lightweight distro.

I've pretty much given up on that machine anyhow, I'm enjoying using Linux on my main desktop.

[Glenn Beck]

I might have to give this a shot. My laptop runs, I just prefer it with linux, but it actually runs XP better than other distros I've used.

A typical full featured modern Linux desktop environment (Gnome or KDE) is definitely heavier than Windows XP. I actually got KDE 4 to run on my 2005 laptop, but obviously with all the fancy shit disabled and it'd easily lock up with more than 2 things running at once; a chat program and a web browser with less than like 6 tabs open was the most it could handle. With Fluxbox it's substantially better.

For an older piece of hardware you'll want a build that uses a less demanding GUI like Xfce, LXDE, or whatever the hell Puppy uses. There are versions of Ubuntu and Mint (which is just a spin on Ubuntu anyway) built with those packages so you can still take advantage of the better software library and hardware compatibility of a lot of the more popular distros, like Ubuntu's rather good networking support that Q mentioned.

http://xubuntu.com/getubuntu#lucid
http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=60
http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora-options#desktops

[ellipsis]

-- by being so small in size (100 MB for the entire installation!) it's able to *load itself into memory (RAM)* on startup and operate at *quick* computer-memory-based speeds, instead of at conventionally slower speeds (going to the hard drive to retrieve each new thing while in use).

Wouldn't that also reduce power consumption because your computer wouldn't be spinning the drive to acess memory all the time?

[ckaihatsu]

Wouldn't that also reduce power consumption because your computer wouldn't be spinning the drive to acess memory all the time?


Yeah, that makes sense. Newer microprocessors (like the Atom) are more energy efficient -- they're built into netbooks, some of which don't even use hard drives, only flash-based (solid state) storage. And because of the lower power consumption less heat is generated, meaning that there's no need for a fan in some cases -- further miniaturization spurs increasing returns...(!)

I'll add that if you're running more than one computer you may want to set up the auxiliary computer(s) with VNC -- try the gsvncj Java applet in a browser to create a VNC server for each -- that way you can see your other computers using only *one* monitor / display -- (!) (And some major apps also provide their own web interface so that you can control them through their own web page, as with a router.)

[Aloysius]

I am seriously in love with Ubuntu. I have Ubuntu 9.whatever, and it works great on my 8 year old machine.
The only problem is how old my computer is, and how slow it is.

[ckaihatsu]

I am seriously in love with Ubuntu. I have Ubuntu 9.whatever, and it works great on my 8 year old machine.
The only problem is how old my computer is, and how slow it is.


Any specs for it? (Got a 'utility' program to find out details about the machine? -- "Hardinfo"?)

I can't reiterate enough how useful Puppy Linux is for an older machine -- reportedly reviving and running on even pre-Pentium, 486 processors. (There are probably as many variations of Puppy Linux alone as there are of all the general variations -- "distros" -- of Linux generally.)


http://www.puppylinux.org/news/

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/


Maybe specify (by making a list)(?) exactly what uses you'll need of a particular machine and then figure out a workflow for how to boot up, launch (or automate the boot-up launch of) programs on start-up without straining the computer's resources, and how to configure and make-comfortable the finer points from there. Consider that you could narrow down your workflow's "bandwidth" to one task at a time, make the PC "headless" to another, main computer, use VNC (or other remote access), etc....

I'd say try the thing just to have a remarkable computer user experience -- everything goes at the speed of RAM, even on older computers...(!)

[ckaihatsu]

Btw, here's a quick tip: There's a terrific tiny Java app called FTPGoServer that will allow you to easily transfer files back and forth on your networked computers (on a home network set up with a router).


(Technical note: On Puppy Linux there's only one user -- 'root' -- and that user has admin access to all parts of the computer. Most Linux distributions, though, will keep your own 'username' account *separate* from the "superuser" 'root' admin account.)





- Any folder you're looking at -- you can go to File > Open as root, type in your password, and the same folder will open up in a new (red-background) file browser window with admin-level access (as for changing file permissions or launching FTPGoServer).

[Ovi]

I am seriously in love with Ubuntu. I have Ubuntu 9.whatever, and it works great on my 8 year old machine.
The only problem is how old my computer is, and how slow it is.
Ubuntu 10.04 was released some time ago (04 2010 lol); have you used xfce or any other light weight desktop environment?

[danyboy27]

i have slackware in dual boot and i must say i am quite happy with it.

Its not recommended to beginer tho.

[Diogenes]

I would look up Arch Linux, Damn Small Linux, and also Ubuntu 10.10 just came out recently. I'm running Ubuntu 10.10, but DSL is I think even smaller than Puppy Linux so if you are concerned about distro size, I think that DSL might be where you want to look.

[Aloysius]

Ubuntu 10.04 was released some time ago (04 2010 lol); have you used xfce or any other light weight desktop environment?
Upgraded to 10.04 some time ago. The computer I'm using now (the fast one that can't play music) has 10.10. It's nice. It's actually Xubuntu, but whatever.

[ckaihatsu]

I like that Puppy's built-in apps will cover most people's regular needs -- and then for quick, easy extendability I'd say download the latest Java -- jre1.6.0_18-1.pet -- and then run Java apps on top of Puppy....


It's worth noting here that several very well-built and very useful apps are available for Java. If you don't already know, Java is a "virtual machine" that is created "within" or "on top of" whatever operating system (Windows / Mac / Linux) you're already running.

The advantage to this is that anyone who creates apps only has to write their code *once*, in Java, and the app will run identically no matter what the hardware or operating system happens to be for each individual user. For the user, a Java app will run the same on whatever machine it is brought to, using the same files in exactly the same way. Most OSes already come with a Java virtual machine already installed -- Linux Mint does, for Linux.

For music I've found that the audio quality from JavaTunes (or Jajuk) is significantly *better* than any of the jukeboxes provided with a typical OS installation. I've also mentioned the FTPGoServer Java app for enabling computer-to-computer file transfers over one's local area network (as with using a router device and Ethernet cables). There's also Vuze / Azureus for file sharing, and I'm personally partial to Art of Illusion and now Sunflow for the creation and rendering of 3-D graphics.

Finally, I'll mention the Linux Mint OS again since one can immediately go to the 'Control Center' and configure the 'Remote Desktop' to allow for incoming control of the screen (and mouse and keyboard) from any other computer on the local network -- it's called VNC. Using a VNC client like 'Gnome-RDP' on one's main screen means that one can make all other computers on the network "headless" so that they're accessible remotely, without using a separate monitor for each one.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

My laptop has proven itself to not being linux friendly at the moment... so for now, I'll just test distros here and there... and when one works or can be made to work, I'll stick with it.

[danyboy27]

My laptop has proven itself to not being linux friendly at the moment... so for now, I'll just test distros here and there... and when one works or can be made to work, I'll stick with it.

define not being friendly?

[altnet]

I would look up Arch Linux, Damn Small Linux, and also Ubuntu 10.10 just came out recently. I'm running Ubuntu 10.10, but DSL is I think even smaller than Puppy Linux so if you are concerned about distro size, I think that DSL might be where you want to look.

I am a huge fan of Arch Linux, I cannot recommend a lightweight distro any more than I can Arch Linux. It may be difficult for a novice user to setup, although the beginner guides mostly address this issue. It may take more time to setup although it is well worth it over the course of time.