a) I've managed to install Red Hat 7.2 on a Pentium 100Mhz with 64mb ram as well as on 
a Pentium 166MMX with 32mb ram using the TEXT mode install and with the barest minimum 
to boot into a console mode system.  The 'bloat' occurs at the GUI level; when X comes 
into the picture, together with  KDE or GNOME or both.
b) I presume the discussion here is based for standalone PCs.  If you are on a network 
then a basic install with just the kernel and some utilities (bash, etc.) on a single 
PC and running X and KDE/GNOME from a powerful server can be very effective and 
powerful.  This can be done very easily using a pure 'modern' distro (Red Hat, 
Mandrake, SuSE, ...).
c) The lightest distro I have had is mine-own!  Start from a machine with everything 
(in source) on it and then start compiling kernels yourself, then compile 
***everything*** for your end-PC on the end-PC.  It might seem time consuming but 
after doing it a few hundred times (like I used to initially) it turns out to be 
faster than even the kickstart utility of Red Hat and will produce the 
leanest-fastest-lightest Linux box.  Of course, I borrowed the idea/concept from the 
Perl community when the CPAN concept was initially mooted.
d) In my real-world work I seem to get only older Pentiums and even older 486s at one 
end, and the fastest 'headaches' from the Intel world.  I'm surviving!

RKA


On Tue, Nov 05, 2002 at 06:53:14PM +0530, K. Ghosh wrote:

> My box - Pentium-I, 166MHz, 32MB RAM.
> My distro  - Debian Woody 3r0.
> Desktop - XFce
> Office - StarOffice 5.2 (start/stop is slow)
> Browser - Galeon / Dillo
> Mailer - Sylpheed

Noticed that OpenOffice is damn slow even on a high-end machine ... If I
am running, say Gnumeric or Evolution, should that cause more load on
the system? I think GNOME applications will start other services like
CORBA server and so on ... same for KDE?

But that will be better off than OpenOffice or StarOffice, I think.

> I have arrived at this combination after lot of trial and error with
> other distros. The latest RH7.3 onwards and MDK9, do not install on P-I
> machines.

RHL 7.3 does install on a Pentium ... but damn difficult to use. I
logged in with KDE as desktop, and the defaults are so heavy, the delays
were unbearable. I wasn't able to complete the wizard that starts for
the first login ... had to reset the machine after a series of
frustrating delays and incorrectly rendered windows.

But does that necessarily mean that GNOME2 or KDE3 are /bad/ for a
Pentium machine? Any pointers on how to prune them?

Sameer.
-- 
   MTech Student,
   Reconfigurable Computing Lab,
   KReSIT, IIT-Bombay.


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