Minimum System Requirements

[techne]

Minimum system requirements is a pretty important issue. We do not want to inadvertently sour Linux Mint's reputation merely because we did not warn people ahead of time that Mint would not work on their hardware configuration.

The key factors in determining whether Mint will run are processor, memory, and hard disk space, so could we try to answer the following questions?

1. What is the slowest processor that Linux Mint will reasonably run on?

2. Which processor architecture is supported?

3. How little memory is need to run Linux Mint?

4. What is the smallest amount of hard disk space that Linux Mint should be installed to?

5. For the LiveCD part of Linux Mint, what is the slowest speed CD-ROM drive that Linux Mint needs?

In the future, we can refer newcomers to this thread when they are deciding whether to try Linux Mint on their systems.

[clem]

1. What is the slowest processor that Linux Mint will reasonably run on?

I'm running it on Pentium M 1.0Ghz underclocked at about 600Mhz. Works fine and everything's fast.

2. Which processor architecture is supported?

Only x86. It works on x64 computers but in 32 bits mode.

3. How little memory is need to run Linux Mint?

It works fine on my machine with 512MB RAM.

4. What is the smallest amount of hard disk space that Linux Mint should be installed to?

I'd recommend 10GB, although I'm sure it takes less than that after install.

5. For the LiveCD part of Linux Mint, what is the slowest speed CD-ROM drive that Linux Mint needs?

No idea.

Clem

[katasuka]

well im not much help but i can say on 450mhz amd k6-2 with 393MB ram gnome is really slow.

i seem to have plenty of ram... i average about 150MB of used ram without anything but the distro running. with firefox gaim and the distro i use about 250MB ram.

the funny thing it seems is i recently tried freespire which uses KDE as the desktop and it seems as fast to me as ubuntu edgy with xfce4 desktop.

my overall opinion with a 450MHz k6-2 is that its too slow for decent daily use using gnome. using xfce4 its decent and runs well.

[quickstart]

AMD Duron 800 MHz 256 MB Ram 20 gig Hdd:

Most distros run ok on this pc. Xubuntu currently installed feels a little quicker than Gnome desktop. The only problem I've had is trying to watch DVDs although as the pc came originally with Windows 98se and only a CD ROM drive, I can live with that.

PCLinux would be my choice for lower spec machines. You can install a basic version and then download the software you want later. I've no proof it's faster than other distros, just that it feels "light" if you see what I mean.

With the move towards better graphics and eye candy etc., I guess it's inevitable that system requirements will increase. Having said that, here in the UK at least, the cost of new machines is at an all time low, no doubt due to the introduction of Vista and the whole 64 bit / Dual Core/ 2(?) MB Ram scenario.
My current Celeron 2.8 MHz pc is just about entry level these days and it's only 2 years old...oh well

[Tiptup300]

1.67ghz celeron
384mb RAM
ATI 2700 and 64vram runs at decent speeds

[scorp123]

HP OmniBook 4150B

- Intel Pentium III 450 MHz
- 256 MB RAM
- 20 GB HDD
- very old DVD-ROM drive (no idea what the speed is)

GNOME and KDE with the default eye-candy turned on are very slow, but the machine works OK with other window environments, e.g. XFCE, WindowMaker, fluxbox, blackbox, fvwm ...

[900i]

Used to run on an HP Omnibook 1Ghz, speedstepped down to 733Mhz most of the time, 512mb ram, 60gig HD, 24xDVD/CDRW. No problems. Now running on rigs in sig, no problem.

[Tiptup300]

Used to run on an HP Omnibook 1Ghz, speedstepped down to 733Mhz most of the time, 512mb ram, 60gig HD, 24xDVD/CDRW. No problems. Now running on rigs in sig, no problem.

XBMC = Xbox Media Center , dont cha love it! U excited for the new eX skin?

[900i]

No not that one,

[Guest]

I have it running on:
AMD Athlon 1400+, overclocked to about 2100+
1GB ddr200
160GB 7200rpm ide100 hard drive
52X cdrom
16X dvd rw
32MB AGP4x nVidia mx200

The real restriction is my video, if I enable any snazzy visual effects it *does* work, but the system lags.

More interestingly, I have it running on a Toshiba Satellite 3000-S353:
Pentium3 900Mhz (often stepped to 300Mhz!)
256MB pc100 memory
8MB shared video memory
60GB 7200rpm ide66 hard drive (technically an ata100 drive, but note that the mobo is restricting me to ata66)

The system is a a little slow to boot and log in, and if I multitask hefty applications (Firefox + Quanta + Photoshop7.0/WINE) it gets sluggish trying to switch windows. But overall, if you run a reasonable load on it the system is very responsive.

I have a small collection of old computers that I'm willing to play with, including a Libretto 100, Dell GX1, etc. If anyone is really interested I will run tests down to 166Mhz Pentium MMX with 32MB of memory and report on boot times, application load times, etc.

[Lason]

I'm running Mint 4 on a:
Pentium II 350 MhZ
650 MB RAM
8 GB C:
160 GB D:
Radeon 9250 Graphics
SoundBlaster PCI128 sound
USB 2,0 card.

Surf (firefox) and music (Amarok) is pretty slow, byt everything else runs at accepteble speed. If i look at the diagrams that shows processor-using it seldom goes UNDER 70% when firefox is open. But the memory-use is about 1/3.

Sending a file over aMSN and do something else at the same time is almost impossible.

I'm going to try MINT 4 om a P4 1,6 GhZ with 512 MB RAM. See if it runs better on that computer. With Win XP the 350 is much faster

[Lason]

Update:

I'm now trying Mint 4 on a Pentium 4 1,6 GhZ.
512 MB RAM
GeForce 2 graphics (stoneage, i know)
Built in soundcard, which is worthless...
and a 20 GB HDD
It runs beautifully

It's a joy to use it, and everything is really fast

[mrsir115]

Main Rig Running Mint Very Well
AMD Athlon X2 4600+ (2.4Ghz)
5GB DDR2 800
Nvidia 8600GT
On-board sound...better than the cheap Audigy I got for $30
250GB SATA II HDD (partition so that 10GB goes to Linux Mint....For testing reasons)

Obviously that may be overkill, but if you are running gnome with compiz settings enabled and more than wobbly windows, this kind of system will be helpful.

Laptop
Intel P3 1Ghz
256MB RAM
8MB on board.
ESS Maestro Sound Board
10GB HDD

Gnome does not like to work with that XFCE4 on the other hand runs great, so I am using that.

Overall though, I choose mint because it seems a lot lighter than the other OS's. That and its elegant which looks cooler than the other OS's (take that V!sta ) I installed it on a few customers computers and my own work computer and the people who used it love it. The thing that won some of my employees over was that the software works out of the box. No need for additional pluggins since Java, flash, and all that other basic stuff is installed as soon as you boot into the new system.

[KHall]

Just as a take on outside limitations for any who might be interested....I've got an old Compaq Presario notebook, 500mhz celeron, 92 mb Ram, and 24x CD-Rom. It came originally with Win98se. In attempting to get the machine to boot from the CD, I can get to the main Mint menu if I'm lucky (maybe on every 5th try). I've tried to install Mint twice and both times the installation stalled out about 1/2-way through (Progress meter got to 46% and never went higher after hours of waiting). It would seem that this old of a machine is simply not able to handle the demands of a new OS like Mint 5.

[balanarahul]

Just as a take on outside limitations for any who might be interested....I've got an old Compaq Presario notebook, 500mhz celeron, 92 mb Ram, and 24x CD-Rom. It came originally with Win98se. In attempting to get the machine to boot from the CD, I can get to the main Mint menu if I'm lucky (maybe on every 5th try). I've tried to install Mint twice and both times the installation stalled out about 1/2-way through (Progress meter got to 46% and never went higher after hours of waiting). It would seem that this old of a machine is simply not able to handle the demands of a new OS like Mint 5.

KHall I think you should try with Puppy Linux or Damn Small Linux.

These 2 OS will run fine on your laptop.

I recommend using Puppy Linux!

Because its minimum requirements are:-

Processor Celeron 300 MHz
RAM 64MB
Hard Disk Drive 128MB

Well Linux Mint is an all rounder OS and I think it will run fine on http://thinpc.co.in/dot-station.html and http://www.classmatepc.com/where-to-buy/convertible/tech-specs/ !!!!!

I like this OS because most of the applications one requires are inbuilt, thus it uses less space!!!!!!!!


SO IT ROCKS!!!!!

[delro]

Joined the forum to post this. Finally I can contribute to my fave distro! Post is a bit long (sorry!)

Happy to say that everything works out of the box for my Compaq Presario C552US laptop!

1.6 GHz Intel Celeron M 520 (Basically a L2-reduced "Merom" Core 2 Solo)
1.5 GB 667MHz DDR2 RAM
10 gig-(ish) partition on my 80GB 5600 rpm SATA HDD. The rest is for *gasp* Windows 7.
Intel 945GM chipset with 64-256MB (Windows says 256 max, Hackintosh says 64MB) GMA 950 graphics.

I used a 4GB PQI USB thumb drive to install Mint. (My combo drive is busted) Install probably went faster than installing using a 56x drive.

Compiz works like a charm! (all of the effects I want enabled)
I've tried playing Torcs, Frets on Fire and Nexuiz. Nexuiz on even the lowest settings struggles on frame rate. Torcs struggles too if there are too many cars on the vicinity. Frets is on par with the Windows version. Will definitely try more games and will find a way to optimize the Intel Graphics (I've read in Ubuntu Forums that Intel gfx performance in 9.04 < 8.04)

Feels a lot zippier compared to Windows 7.
Mint, IMO performance-wise, is on par with a clean WinXP SP3 install. (and Mint looks a lot prettier and a lot more usable, GUI-wise)

My dad was having problems with Ubuntu but wanted an Ubuntu distro so I recommended Mint 7 to him. Just installed it on an old X-series ThinkPad.

I think it has an 800MHz Mobile Pentium for a CPU.
It has 384MB of RAM.
Installed it using an 8.8GB partition. 600MB for swap.
Used a pretty slow CD-ROM drive. Install took 10 minutes.

First impressions on his laptop:
I agree with the others that GNOME isn't the best for the old computers. Loading even simple menus was sluggish. Once Mint XFCE is out of RC I might recommend it for him.

[sysst]

Hello

I would like to share my experience regarding a certain issue, though I'm still not sure what was the reason of the problem.

I tried booting with the live DVD of Linux Mint Gloria on a computer that has the following:
Cpu: 2.6Ghz Celeron
Ram: 256MB (DDR)
VGA: Sis65x
HDD:80GB (has bad sectors)

The computer has Windows on a FAT32 partition, and Kubuntu on an ext3, and Windows partition had bad sectors and was not booting, but Kubuntu was booting fine, I wanted to install MInt instead of Kubuntu, so I tried the Live DVD, but it didn't start.

It was in compatibility mode giving so many I/O Errors, until it reaches a halt, and in normal start, it reaches a place where it writes this "initramfs" and waiting for some commands, but it wouldn't take many commands.

I don't know if the bad sectors on the HDD can be the problem, but as I understand,, it shouldn't be in this case.

And the DVD itself is fine, I have it installed on another machine, and it's working great.

The only time I had a problem with a live CD is when I tried booting Kubuntu on an old 800Mhz celeron with 128MB ram, so I thought that machine was too middle ages.

Thanks

[Viktory]

HP Compaq Proliant ML 370 G2 Server
2X 1.26 Ghz Pentium III (Tualatin Cpu)
2X 512 ECC Sd ram (Dual Channell)

8 Mb Ati rage XL Vga

Linux Mint 10 Live Cd Work Perfectly

[ianmaiden]

hey guys.. ive an old rig. P4, 3.06GHZ with a 512mb RAM. do you think its good enough to install and use linux mint 11 comfortably?

much appreciated.

[nunol]

It should install an run but with only 512MB of RAM it can get slow if you use many programs at the same time.

Give it a try, if it's not fast enough you can always try something faster, Mint 10 LXDE, Mint XFCE or Mint 9 Fluxbox.

I have installed Mint 11 on a VM (with a pre-installed SWAP) with less than 256MB of RAM and on a VM with 512MB (without a SWAP partition).