Hi, I am interested in installing Linux on an older laptop (600-700mhz and 64mb ram 8mb shared for the video card 4gb harddrive). I need to find a Linux installation which would allow me to play several video formats (ogm, mkv, wmv, avi, mpeg, quicktime, realplayer, etc), audio (mp3, flac, wav, wma), use a mirc program/script that is/or is very similiar to Sysreset, Gaim, Firefox mozilla, openoffice, and use a netgear usb 802.11b adapter. The Linux installation does not need to use and particular UI and I will admit that I am not any sort of experienced Linux user but I can follow directions and figure out some problems. The laptop will run windows xp pro sp1a if slightly laggy but the other linux installation i tried ran with about a 2 minute delay on any actions. Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
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Suggestions as to which Linux installation
- Thread starter talley
- Start date
hokatichenci
Gawd
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2004
- Messages
- 722
I suggest running Gentoo Linux, mainly due to its flexibility. It takes a long time to install but is wel worth it, so long as you have a high speed internet connection (I couldn't imaging Gentooing entirely from dialup).
Suggested software would be
XOrg with XFCE4 or Blackbox/Openbox/Fluxbox window managers, these are all pretty light wms.
MPlayer/WMPlayer with flacc/ogg/xvid/other useflags, plays everything you need.
Firefox/Openoffice are both emergable (available to install) both from source or from binaries. [I suggest installing Firefox from source, Openoffice from binary].
XChat2 GUI / IRSSI Console for irc needs - I don't know if these have scripts specifically but I'm sure you could find a piggyback application that would run a strict irc serv.
The Gentoo Installation guide is very helpful, even for people who are new to linux.
By the way, I have a similar set of needs for my old Dell laptop (celeron 500, 128mb ram, ati p/m vid, wireless 6gb hd), and it just flies with XFCE4. Boot time is about 1 minute 30 seconds to a completely loaded desktop. Openoffice is a very large suite and takes some time to load, so don't expect miracles from it. If you are simply doing text editing you could always use a lighter notepad style program and later do editing/spellchecking with O
rg.
Good luck deciding the right Linux Distro for you,
-hoka
Suggested software would be
XOrg with XFCE4 or Blackbox/Openbox/Fluxbox window managers, these are all pretty light wms.
MPlayer/WMPlayer with flacc/ogg/xvid/other useflags, plays everything you need.
Firefox/Openoffice are both emergable (available to install) both from source or from binaries. [I suggest installing Firefox from source, Openoffice from binary].
XChat2 GUI / IRSSI Console for irc needs - I don't know if these have scripts specifically but I'm sure you could find a piggyback application that would run a strict irc serv.
The Gentoo Installation guide is very helpful, even for people who are new to linux.
By the way, I have a similar set of needs for my old Dell laptop (celeron 500, 128mb ram, ati p/m vid, wireless 6gb hd), and it just flies with XFCE4. Boot time is about 1 minute 30 seconds to a completely loaded desktop. Openoffice is a very large suite and takes some time to load, so don't expect miracles from it. If you are simply doing text editing you could always use a lighter notepad style program and later do editing/spellchecking with O
rg.Good luck deciding the right Linux Distro for you,
-hoka
PC Linux OS will do all of those things out of the box. It's really a great lean and mean distro. It's based on Mandrake...it's a live CD as well, so you can try it before you do a HDD install.
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/html/download.html
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/pclos/html/download.html
Bullitt
2[H]4U
- Joined
- Sep 28, 2004
- Messages
- 2,939
GEntoo is nice, but if you are new to linux, perhaps starting with a more graphical install proggie. I'd suggest RH or Mandrake. Once you get the hang of how linux runs (its different than windows but similar) you can switch around to gentoo, or my favorite, Debian.
The reason I'd suggest RH or Mandrake is that their support of hardware is _generally_ very good and runs most made-for-windows hardware pretty much out of the box. Let me clarify, linux is linux and hardware that works with one distro can be made to work with another distro. Those ones I picked are what I would consider "most friendly" to get up and running. Gentoo is good, but I fell in love with the Debian apt/dpkg systems. No more RPM hell
The reason I'd suggest RH or Mandrake is that their support of hardware is _generally_ very good and runs most made-for-windows hardware pretty much out of the box. Let me clarify, linux is linux and hardware that works with one distro can be made to work with another distro. Those ones I picked are what I would consider "most friendly" to get up and running. Gentoo is good, but I fell in love with the Debian apt/dpkg systems. No more RPM hell
Yoper's a good option for small ram footprint and decent optimiazation, without the pain and ordeal of a gentoo installation. Just switch to using XFCE, blackbox, or icewm instead of the default KDE. Knoppix is also a nice option and has a great HW detection.
Both use apt-get.
Both use apt-get.
BillLeeLee
[H]F Junkie
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2003
- Messages
- 13,486
Yoper would be a good one. I'd also say take a look at SuSE. Something a little more in depth would be Slackware.
Using Fluxbox or Openbox for a WM or XFCE4 (dont' personally like it, but XFCE4 is lean) is good, since they're light on resources. I don't recommend Blackbox since it's really not being developed anymore, and Fluxbox has improved a lot on the Blackbox base code, and Openbox has been rewritten from scratch (used to be based on Blackbox, not anymore as of Openbox3).
Gaim is there, Gaim is originally a Linux app with a Windows port. IRSSI is my choice for an IRC client, very lean and customizable. Of course, if you must have a GUI IRC client, then XChat 2 will be fine.
Mplayer will play all the files, or VLC, or Xine, with proper codecs installed. XMMS or pretty much any audio player will play all those files and more.
And yeah, everything you want can be accomplished with any linux distro.
Using Fluxbox or Openbox for a WM or XFCE4 (dont' personally like it, but XFCE4 is lean) is good, since they're light on resources. I don't recommend Blackbox since it's really not being developed anymore, and Fluxbox has improved a lot on the Blackbox base code, and Openbox has been rewritten from scratch (used to be based on Blackbox, not anymore as of Openbox3).
Gaim is there, Gaim is originally a Linux app with a Windows port. IRSSI is my choice for an IRC client, very lean and customizable. Of course, if you must have a GUI IRC client, then XChat 2 will be fine.
Mplayer will play all the files, or VLC, or Xine, with proper codecs installed. XMMS or pretty much any audio player will play all those files and more.
And yeah, everything you want can be accomplished with any linux distro.