Well, I have a few old laptops sitting around (sadly it seems that 1/3 are in working order!), and I have decided to try and sell them to make a little cash (for our 'buy on a whim' from Ebay stash).2 are IBM Thinkpad 570's - 366Mhz (yikes!), one working just fine, the other has a big hole on the corner of the lower bezel where it must have taken a fall on someone's floor at one time.
The other is an IBM Thinkpad 390x, which also is a 366Mhz laptop, but it is a *rock* (not "solid as a rock", but "useful and as heavy as a rock"). Since it isn't booting up, I think I may just part out the display and trash the rest of it.
Now, for the working 570 laptop. I really don't want to sell a laptop with Windows 98 installed, which is what this unit originally came with, because...well, it is 2007. And running a 9 year old operating system probably won't get me a lot of views on the ol' auction site. I want to modernize this thing a little bit, making it appealing to a student.So I've made the decision for Linux on this poor little laptop (but man it is SLIM, even by today's standards). Then comes the real decision:
What distribution should I use?
I installed Ubuntu 7.04, thinking that it would be adequate, but I'm discovering that it is a bit too much for a 366Mhz with 384Mb of RAM. Booting up took awhile (even after installing the OS from the Live CD to the drive), and it seems that OpenOffice really liked to crash when I started typing up a test document.
So, my requirements:
- It must be easy to use, I'm thinking of my potential buyers here - the more like Windows (I know), the better.
- Something that comes with an install of OpenOffice or the like.
- It must be able to easily pick up new drives & devices that are plugged into the laptop - something with the least amount of fiddling around with downloading packages if possible.
- The distribution must be relatively snappy on a 366Mhz unit for obvious reasons.
- The Window manager(? - sorry, I'm not totally sure if this is what I mean), must have a cool, but non-performance burdening feel.
But, what I don't know is if these fall into my requirements above. I don't have a very good understanding of Linux, so any help is appreciated here. What do you think?
6 comments:
Puppy Linux - hands down...
http://puppylinux.com
I have an old K6-III 550 MHz Sony with 256MB of RAM that runs it beautifully.
PCMCIA wireless (with an old Linksys B card) worked right out of the box.
damn small linux by far and away. 50mb come on can you beat that?
Also slackware or maybe go out on a limb with a minimal mint install
Gnome would be a good choice for a windows manager, it doesn't hog as many resources as KDE. A windows manager is basically your GUI.
Thanks guys! I think I will go with Puppy Linux...if Carputers says it is good, then it must be good ;)
I'll let you know how I fare with the sale ;)
I have been pulling out my old laptops and tried DSL, Puppy, Vector, Deli Linux, and Antix.
I would suggest Antix (a lite Mepis version)
Antix ROX on my PII 450 with 128MB memory. Dsl was not bad, but seems alot more bloated than Antix. Puppy is also bloated, and sluggish.
Thought about PCBSD?
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