Which version for 128 mb ram?

[Troken]

Hi,

I have an old laptop with only 128 mb ram. Which of the fluxbox editions would work? The latest versions require 256 mb ram. I don't need the lates features, but it would be nice to use the laptop for easy tasks. Like playing music, edit a text document or read the news on the web.

[JasonLG]

Hi,

I have an old laptop with only 128 mb ram. Which of the fluxbox editions would work? The latest versions require 256 mb ram. I don't need the lates features, but it would be nice to use the laptop for easy tasks. Like playing music, edit a text document or read the news on the web.

None of the version will work. 128MB isn't enough RAM for a graphical installer. Even if you do manage to get the live CD to boot the installer will just crash. I recommend CrunchBang (http://crunchbanglinux.org/) for a machine with that low a specs. It's light and it has an option for a text based installer.

[viking777]

Mint fluxbox is great, but I wouldn't fancy it on that amount of ram.

Crunchbang Lite or Slitaz would work.

Slitaz is the lighter, but Crunch Lite is debian based so easy to maintain/tinker with.

[kwisher]

You might want to try Puppy Linux also.

[leodelacruz]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

[viking777]

You might want to try Puppy Linux also.

Puppy Linux is great, actually my favourite lightweight distro, but it has one problem if you install it, it runs as root all the time which is not really ideal. You can probably change it somehow, but I don't know how.

[Kendall]

I've gotten Mint 6 Fluxbox to run with 128 MB RAM, but not any of the newer editions (lowest I successfully tested with Mint 9 Fluxbox was 192 MB). Personally I'd look at antiX for something usable out of the box, or Arch if you don't mind spending a day setting it up. When the Debian based Fluxbox edition hits, it's possible it'll run on 128 MB, but we won't know until it's ready for testing.

[tomast]

I am running Mint 6 Gnome on an old
733 Mhz 128 Ram Dell computer and
it works pretty good once it finally boots up.
Just use it for internet access.

Trick is I installed it on a hard drive
in a much better computer , then swapped
the HD to the old dell.

Oh and I made a 512 MB swap for "pretend" memory.
Worked for Felicia so I guess it might work for
other distros also...

[900i]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightweigh ... stribution

[Troken]

Thank you all, so many answers! I have tested quite a lot of the lightweight distros out there, many of those you have mentioned. But I am not an advanced Linux user and really like to use as little tinkering or teminal as possible.

I've managed to install with graphical installer by swapping the HD to another computer (because the laptop lacks both CD-drive and USB-boot!), but still either a distro is too heavy or too unattractive. I had most success with Absolute Linux and TinyMe, but I do love Mint and always want to return to it. So I thought, better an old version than not at all. I might try the lightest version of Vector Linux. Or Crunchbang Lite.

[jeffreyC]

CrunchBang Lite is obsolete, it was based on Ubuntu 9.04, CrunchBang has switched to Debian and no longer has a lite version

Linux Mint Fluxbox 5 would be your best choice but support for it does end next month.

[shengchieh]

I know this is old thread (had to take care of my cellphone problem first). Give !# crunchbang a try.

http://crunchbang.org/
http://crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/
http://crunchbang.org/wiki/

Sheng-Chieh

[gnomic]

This might be interesting. Appears to be targeted at low ram machines.

http://minino.galpon.org/wiki/doku.php? ... cteristics

Haven't tried it myself, but planning to do so.

[Troken]

This might be interesting. Appears to be targeted at low ram machines.

http://minino.galpon.org/wiki/doku.php? ... cteristics

Haven't tried it myself, but planning to do so.

Thank you, that really looks interesting, almost too good to be true. Only 64 mb ram necessary, 128 mb ram optimal? And it looks nice too. I'll try it out asap.

[Pierre]

have a look @ anti-X
http://antix.mepis.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

it's designed for low spec machines

[nunol]

With 128MB of RAM you could build a custom Debian Fluxbox on top of a Debian Minimal install: http://wiki.debian.org/FluxBox

Unfortunately it would require a few commands on the teminal... maybe when you have more experience you could do it as a fun project.

You could also try to install Crunchbang and them Fluxbox but again, it would require a few commands on the teminal and I am not sure if it works well because I never tried this myself: http://crunchbanglinux.org/forums/topic ... ngfluxbox/

Just for fun:
If your computer has a 1.44MB floppy drive, Debian 4 (etch) boot floppy: http://archive.debian.org/debian/dists/ ... es/floppy/

[vinnywright]

I have mint9-fluxbox on a old laptop with 128-RAM and it is working ......a bit slow ...but works.
IF the HD is pre-partitioned with a swap partition (1Gig in my case) the installer will use it and runs without crashing.

hear is more on the laptop viewtopic.php?f=180&t=68816

VINNY

[Troken]

I read somewhere that the coming Linux Mint Fluxbox might be based on Debian, that would make a lightweight distro indeed.

[jeffreyC]

Yes, that is true, and according to Clem it will have a more minimalist software selection than either of the current two Debian based Mint releases.
Good news for anyone wanting Mint on an older or more limited computer.

[nunol]

I read somewhere that the coming Linux Mint Fluxbox might be based on Debian, that would make a lightweight distro indeed.

While you wait for the next Mint Fluxbox give AntiX M11 a spin, it has several nice WM like Fluxbox and iceWM, works well with 128MB of RAM and has a i686 and i486 version.