Re: Which OS to just to run WEB Browser
- From: IsaacKuo <mechdan@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 31 May 2007 13:37:56 -0700
On May 31, 1:17 am, Stefan Patric <toot...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 30 May 2007 10:50:20 -0700, malcolm.dhuga wrote:
Any one suggest which OS or Linux? I have a unused old laptop - i386
which i want to use for browsing and email...something i can leave on in
the kitchen so the kids can use for email access or internet.
You may get acceptable performance using it as an X terminal.
Even then, performance will be very sluggish. I use a 120mhz
Pentium with 48megs of RAM as an X terminal, and it's
definitely laggy. In contrast, my 300mhz PII with 192megs of
RAM is almost as responsive as running my main workstation
locally. Both of these computers run Debian 4.0 and are
connected to my LAN via 100mbit fast ethernet. I could
improve performance by getting rid of anti-aliased fonts, but
I really like the pleasant appearance of anti-aliased fonts.
The 120mhz Pentium runs at 1024x768 resolution; the 300mhz
PII runs at 2048x1536 resolution. I also login locally on the
300mhz machine occasionally. It's somewhat sluggish, but
definitely usable. The large amount of RAM (192megs) really
helps, although really 64megs is sufficient.
But an old 386 laptop? It probably only has 1 or 2 gigs of
RAM. Running any sort of Linux is an exercise in futility
on that. Your best bet may be a floppy based rdesktop or
vnc client. The responsiveness will be very laggy, but at least
it will be usable.
My best advice, if a 386 or 486, is to install DOS and Windows 3.11, if
you want a GUI. I have a very old -- about 10+ years -- Packard Bell
Diplomat notebook with a 25MHz 486 and 4 MB of RAM, and I've been
unsuccessful in finding any version of Linux old or new with a GUI that
will run on it. So, it runs DOS and Windows. (I use it mainly as a
glorified typewriter. Not much good for anything else.) Plus, the old
versions of Linux from that era are just too hard for the neophyte Linux
user to administer and configure.
With only 4megs of RAM, it's pretty hopeless. With 16megs
of RAM, that laptop would be a decent candidate for Deli
Linux, a modern distribution.
FYI: Contemporary Linux distros run best on systems with at least a 500
MHz (1 Gig is better) Pentium/Athlon CPU and 256MB RAM. I have Debian
3.1 Sarge with GNOME running on an IBM Thinkpad 240X (500MHz PIII and 192
MB RAM). The screen updates are slow, but it works well enough for my
purposes -- in the field writing, email, web, business stuff. (I could
improve the graphic response by going to a lightweight, less resource
demanding window manager. I just haven't bothered.) Also, I'm running
PCLinuxOS 2007 with KDE on a Dell Inspiron 5000e (500MHz PIII and 256MB)
and it runs much better than the Thinkpad because of more RAM.
With Debian Sarge, I found GNOME seemed sluggish compared to KDE.
With KDE, I found Debian Sarge to run perfectly fine on 128megs of
RAM.
Since you're already used to KDE on your PCLinuxOS machine, you could
try out KDE on your Debian machine also. While you're at it, you
could
try out Debian 4.0 (Etch) instead. Sarge's old KDE setup lacks some
of
what I would consider "the basics". For example, if you plug in a USB
thumbdrive, Sarge's KDE will do...nothing. You have to manually mount
the drive in some fashion (maybe typing some commands, maybe having
a USB drive icon on the desktop to right click on). In contrast,
Etch's
more recent KDE handles removeable drives and media with a friendly
pop-up window.
I use KDE on some of my Debian 4.0 machines. One of them only has
128megs of RAM. It works fine, despite the lack of swap (like most of
my workstations, it's diskless). KDE has a bad reputation for being
bloated, but I somehow get the feeling that recent versions of KDE are
actually less bloated than recent versions of GNOME.
Isaac Kuo
.
- References:
- Which OS to just to run WEB Browser
- From: malcolm . dhuga
- Re: Which OS to just to run WEB Browser
- From: Stefan Patric
- Which OS to just to run WEB Browser
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