Is there a "Linux Lite"???

[brandxman]

Well here it goes....

I've been using Win98 for a few years now on my trusty old 133MHz, 64mb ram laptop. It just crapped out on me for the last time and I've had to totally reinstall a system. A buddy, using WinXP, burned me a copy of SUSE 7.2 and I've got it all installed. Its been about a week and while I'm enjoying the change of environment, the total lack of speed (as compared to my old Win98 system) is killing me plus the fact that I have almost no hard disk space left is a major bummer.

What would like to know is if there is such a thing as "Linux Lite." I'm looking for something that will give me all of the functionality of my old Win9x system and run at least competitively in speed on the same hardware. I know the usual solution is to buy more horse power but to cut to the chaise I don't have the cash to burn on something I really only need for typing papers, Internet and e-mail.

Over all I'm not trying to slam Linux, in fact I'm really starting to love it, I'm just not crazy about the fact that my Win98 system was much faster and much better integrated with its features. It didn't come with 15 text editors, 3 web browsers, 5 e-mail clients and in the end only took about 150mb for a base install. I think my SUSE install took 1200mb with KDE. I guess what I'm looking for in a Linux system is something that is as user friendly and quick as Win98.

Is there such a beast??
--B

[Malakin]

mandrake 8.2 comes with a 64meg (disk space) install.

If you want to speed things up use a lightweight desktop like blackbox.

[Th3 DuD3]

Originally posted by brandxman:
<STRONG>Well here it goes....

I've been using Win98 for a few years now on my trusty old 133MHz, 64mb ram laptop. It just crapped out on me for the last time and I've had to totally reinstall a system. A buddy, using WinXP, burned me a copy of SUSE 7.2 and I've got it all installed. Its been about a week and while I'm enjoying the change of environment, the total lack of speed (as compared to my old Win98 system) is killing me plus the fact that I have almost no hard disk space left is a major bummer.

What would like to know is if there is such a thing as "Linux Lite." I'm looking for something that will give me all of the functionality of my old Win9x system and run at least competitively in speed on the same hardware. I know the usual solution is to buy more horse power but to cut to the chaise I don't have the cash to burn on something I really only need for typing papers, Internet and e-mail.

Over all I'm not trying to slam Linux, in fact I'm really starting to love it, I'm just not crazy about the fact that my Win98 system was much faster and much better integrated with its features. It didn't come with 15 text editors, 3 web browsers, 5 e-mail clients and in the end only took about 150mb for a base install. I think my SUSE install took 1200mb with KDE. I guess what I'm looking for in a Linux system is something that is as user friendly and quick as Win98.

Is there such a beast??
--B</STRONG>

BlackBox is your friend!! Also use Galeon over Mozilla !! Mozilla is bloated compared to Galeon which loads faster then Mozilla on a 200 mhz PC I have setup at work. Also if you like use Pine for email and learn how to set it up for your needs. Then again I would recommend you double the amount of ram you use to 128 or even tp 256 if I were you because modern Linux distros tend to like a lot of ram. Also if you want you can look for distro's like Gentoo that installed via being compiled to your system so it runs a lot faster then most Commercial Linux distros. As you tailor Gentoo and it's app's to run on your machine via compiling it before installing it and choosing which apps to download and install. Then again I don't know if you want to go to the trouble of using a advance distro like Gentoo just to get a speed boost but it's up to you decide.

[ 19 March 2002: Message edited by: Th3 DuD3 ]

[ph34r]

Peanut Linux is based on Slackware, and installs to under 300mb including a big swap partition. And has all the goodies - X 4.x, KDE, etc.

[z0mbix]

or slackware itself! Or ROOT Linux as it's very similar to slack and is pentium optimized for slightly better performance. I wouldn't recommend Mandrake as you might aswell use SuSE still!

Opera is also a very good light and small web browser.

As previously posted something like blackbox/fluxbox/windowmaker/icewm might be your solution for de/wm as KDE/Gnome are very cpu/memory intensive.

btw. with SuSE, you don't have to install 15 text editors, 3 web browsers, 5 e-mail clients etc. Just install what you need. Same goes with any distro.

[mangeli]

Originally posted by Th3 DuD3:
<STRONG>BlackBox is your friend!! Also use Galeon over Mozilla !! Mozilla is bloated compared to Galeon which loads faster then Mozilla on a 200 mhz PC I have setup at work. Also if you like use Pine for email and learn how to set it up for your needs. Then again I would recommend you double the amount of ram you use to 128 or even tp 256 if I were you because modern Linux distros tend to like a lot of ram. Also if you want you can look for distro's like Gentoo that installed via being compiled to your system so it runs a lot faster then most Commercial Linux distros. As you tailor Gentoo and it's app's to run on your machine via compiling it before installing it and choosing which apps to download and install. Then again I don't know if you want to go to the trouble of using a advance distro like Gentoo just to get a speed boost but it's up to you decide.

[ 19 March 2002: Message edited by: Th3 DuD3 ]</STRONG>


Galleon requires mozilla.

So its still there.

Opera 6 B1 is the best browser around at the moment.

But yea, you should be able to to an expert install of almost any distro and knock out the bloat.....

[BadBen]

http://www.ibiblio.org/peanut/