Best Lightweight Free OS?

November 28, 2007 4:17 PM

Best Linux Based OS?

I have an old Gateway Solo 5300 laptop I would like to install a Light, Fast, Fun OS on. It only has 256 megs of ram a 600hz processor and 5 gigs hard drive space. Thinking something mostly for Firefox on the couch. I have dabbled with Ubuntu a bit but having issues installing it . Any user friendly out of the box (for the most part) suggestions? (currently has Win98 installed on it)

posted by slowtree to Computers & Internet (21 answers total)

Xubuntu will be loads faster than Ubuntu, but if Ubuntu doesn't support your laptop, Xubuntu support will be the same. For the cost of a stack of CDs you can try out a bunch of distro's livecds.
I may be wrong about this, but if your hardware isn't supported on the newest kernel, there isn't much you can do by switching distributions.
If disk space is an issue DSL or Puppy Linux are worth a shot.
posted by Ctrl_Alt_ep at 4:23 PM on November 28, 2007

I'd try antiX, puppy, or damn small linux on your specs. They'll all internet just fine.
posted by a robot made out of meat at 4:25 PM on November 28, 2007

If Ubuntu doesn't work, there isn't a whole lot other distributions will do. What specific issues did you have? Xubuntu is a lightweight version of Ubuntu that will run faster with your specs. You might want to try the other normal players, such as Fedora, Suse, etc.
posted by SirStan at 4:28 PM on November 28, 2007

It really depends on what you're looking for and what tradeoffs you're willing to make.

As someone who now expects to USE the computer and no longer plays with OSes just for fun, I can say that Debian Stable (currently v4) is by far the most trouble-free, rock-solid distribution I've ever used, out of Redhat, SuSE, Mandriva, Ubuntu, Linspire, Gentoo, or for that matter, FreeBSD. It's not as user-friendly to set up as say, Ubuntu or Redhat, but Debian Stable basically NEVER breaks once you have things set the way you like them.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 4:36 PM on November 28, 2007

Oh, and as for drawbacks? Expect rock-solid and FAST updates for security issues, but not for other bugs. Also, don't expect to see packages added into Stable outside of a major version-incrementing release.
posted by NucleophilicAttack at 4:39 PM on November 28, 2007

I've installed Xubuntu on less of a machine (last week no less) - old Thinkpad 240x with only a PIII 500 and 192MB - worked fine, much better than Windows2000 did.

If you could tell us what kinds of issues you're having installing, that could be helpful.
posted by pupdog at 4:46 PM on November 28, 2007

I am typing this from a system with an Xfce desktop on Debian stable, and I highly recommend it. Imho Debian wins in many categories; stability, number of packages available, ease of package management and upgrades, quickness of security patches, and wide range of supported hardware.

They don't have cutting-edge versions of most software in Debian stable, but they backport security patches to their old versions. Lately Firefox has always been upgraded to the latest 2.x release, but when 3.0 comes out I wouldn't be surprised if Debian continues to maintain 2.x in stable. It's their way. And it works pretty well.

To find out the versions of specific packages in various releases of debian and ubuntu, you can use these urls:
http://packages.debian.org/packagename
http://packages.ubuntu.com/packagename

On my main system I also keep an Ubuntu gutsy install in a chroot to run newer versions of a few things, like Inkscape (because the version in etch doesn't support blurring). I haven't actually booted it yet, but in a chroot gutsy looks pretty good. I guess for me, Ubuntu is really more of a GNU distro than a linux distro since I haven't had need of their kernel in the last few releases :)
posted by finite at 5:18 PM on November 28, 2007

Have you tried Mandriva? It was the popular user-friendly flavor of Linux before Ubuntu came around. It's still a great distro.
posted by oddman at 5:30 PM on November 28, 2007

Ubuntu was a little heavy, imo. I'd try Arch so you can customize to your heart's content. Arch doesn't, by default, install a lot of stuff you don't necessarily need like Ubuntu does.
For lightweight window managers, I'd stick with Fluxbox, Blackbox, or Xfce.
posted by ick at 6:21 PM on November 28, 2007

I love Ubuntu up until just shy of the Point of Gayness, but you gotta install it from the server ISO. That way, the installation passes a lot more quickly and you can put on just what you want with the package manager afterwards. It just puts enough stuff on there to get you a usable command line, and a few more things if you pick the LAMP option at the end. Assuming you do want all the GUI stuff, you can sudo aptitude install [gnome,kde,xubuntu]-desktop.

I don't know what your install issues are but you might also try booting into the old-school VGA-mode installer instead of the Gnome/LiveCD dealie it defaults to now.
posted by moift at 6:50 PM on November 28, 2007

+1 for Arch. But nobody can tell you what the best distribution is. You'll hear 8,000 different answers. You really just have to try out every one you're interested in and then decide which one is best for you. Everybody's answer so far, including mine, is biased. Most have either never tried other distros or dismissed them for reasons that would have nothing to do with you and your preferences.

Still, I've tried 25+ distros and have been using Arch the longest. You can make it as lean or as bloated as you want to. I have now been using it over 2 years and using Linux for almost 5 years.

If I were you, I would try Arch, Damn Small Linux, Xubuntu, Debian, Puppy Linux and Vector Linux, and then out of those, decide which one you like the best and go with it.

Good luck.
posted by pallak7 at 6:58 PM on November 28, 2007

Nthing Xubuntu. Ubuntu has a great community and support, which makes all the difference when you're new to linux. Definitely learn and love the Ubuntu Forums for great advice and how-tos.

As others have said, the default GNOME desktop is pretty heavy, and KDE isn't much better. I'd start with Xubuntu and see if you like the window manager enough to stick with it.
posted by chrisamiller at 7:23 PM on November 28, 2007

Kubuntu, my friend (KDE + Ubuntu).

Fedora Core is pretty sweet too, but last version I installed there was an issue with firefox being only version 1.5 (when 2 was out), and I couldn't upgrade the browser without jumping hoops. Weird.
posted by JaySunSee at 7:54 PM on November 28, 2007

Have you priced notebook memory lately?
Newegg has 1 gb for $20.
Throw some ram into it and run kubutu.
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:57 PM on November 28, 2007

Damn Small Linux - It'll cook on that machine, particularly if you run it in RAM. It comes with Firefox built in.
posted by Orb2069 at 9:38 PM on November 28, 2007

Fluxbuntu. Lightweight, productive, agile, efficient, ubuntu.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:32 PM on November 28, 2007

Try Slackware. You'll probably hate it, but it may be just what you're looking for.
posted by eclectist at 11:28 PM on November 28, 2007

I won't join in to chorus of all the different distros out there, but I will say that if you want Ubuntu, you should be using the alternate (CLI) installer, not the Live CD.
posted by mysterious1der at 6:11 AM on November 29, 2007

Seconding fluxbuntu. It's ubuntu with fluxbox window manager. Lightweight and works well on old hardware. I have it on a Dell laptop that is so old it doesn't have onboard ethernet ( I use a USB dongle).
posted by neat-o at 6:57 AM on November 29, 2007

I haven't tried it myself, but there was quite a bit of buzz about gOS when WalMart started shipping cheap PCs with it. I've been thinking about installing it on an old laptop myself to use for, as you said, Firefox on the couch.
posted by Ickster at 8:45 AM on November 29, 2007

pallak7's right -- you're going to get a ton of different answers. But I'm with them in suggesting Arch Linux -- it's like gentoo without the compiling. Assuming you have an active Internet connection, installing new applications in Arch is pretty simple.

I don't think you'll need fluxbox or blackbox or anything like that -- Xfce should do the trick, and it natively supports GTK applications (not to mention that you won't need to readjust your GUI usage habits).
posted by spiderskull at 11:59 AM on November 29, 2007