On 4/20/06, Stefan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Hi there... > > I have a pretty old computer... Celeron 466Mhz, 128 MB RAM, 8.4 GB HDD, > Matrox 8 MB AGP 2x card on a 440BX chipset. Not really fast then... but back > in the day, when it was my primary computer (to be read quite some years > ago), I did manage to play with Windows 98, Visual C 6.0, and much about > anything... it did run Windows 2000, and Me at various stages in its life. > Not to mention Red Hat 7.0, 7.1, 7.2 - rather well I might add. > > Now my (dear) sister is using it - and she mainly wants Firefox and > Gaim, and perhaps XMMS... And yep, you've guessed it - Linux. Well she > doesn't really WANT Linux, more like I only give her Linux. > > As such I've surfed distrowatch, and the net (to be read google) to find > a lightweight distro to use on that aging piece of hardware - which still > runs well considering.... First stop was Ubuntu 5.10... really slow... till > I put IceWM on it. Next stop was Ubuntu Dapper Drake, Flight 5 - and Gnome > 2.14 is really a lot lighter than previous versions were. But, again, IceWM > proves lighter still so that was nice. Then I thought I might try Ubuntu > Light, or... wait a sec... xubuntu! So I fetched xubuntu Flight 6, new > install... and... guess what? > > Really disappointed here guys... and when I say really I mean REALLY... > Flight 5 with IceWM is faster than xubuntu in all respects... and xubuntu > somehow doesn;t even have the good and thorough menus ubuntu has... in IceWM
> I simply migrated all the Gnome menu entries... in xubuntu... I don't have > any. (again, the computer is to be used by a really novice Linux user - my > sis) what do you mean ? > And why the sluggish performance? Someone over here said he had an > Athlon at 1+ Ghz... well... that's simply too fast to be able to make a > succesfull "light" distro. My Celeron 466Mhz stubles... it takes some good > seconds to simply display the gdm background... and in its day the Matrox > was really a damn good 2D card... (hell, it can even run Quake 3 / Wolf) > > The bottom line is - regular Ubuntu with IceWM is faster and more > convenient than xubuntu, so what is the point behind it? and trust me - > xubuntu IS slow... too slow to enjoy anything... > > I've tried a DSL Live CD - boots faster than xubuntu, and works faster > than xubuntu - but you might argue that it doesn't really have many things > on it - true.... but a Knoppix derivate proved really succesful, and so I > went for "Feather Light Linux", another Knoppix / Debian derivate... this > one has a (small) 128 MB Live CD and guess what... it works flawlessly! It > has pretty much everything an average user needs (to be read - my sis) > including Firefox, Gaim, XMMS, Abiword, and a lot of other things such as > Rox-filer, and a few window managers to choose from, including IceWM. > > Right now? That Celeron is running Feather Light Linux - installed on > the HDD, and I am really happy with the results. Considering that... in its > day that old computer did a very good job of running Red Hat 7.2, I was > expecting a "light" distro to perform much like the old Red Hat - reliable > and pretty fast... xubuntu doesn't, but Feather Light does! (and it even has > synaptic). > > All in all, I wish you good luck with your project, though my personal > belief is that your project is more or less pointless. Better results can be > achieved by simply using Ubuntu and IceWM, and really better results can be > achieved with DSL, or Feather Light Linux. > > Kind regards, > > Stefan Vrabie. > -- > xubuntu-devel mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel > > > -- ---- http://dsslive.org ---- -- xubuntu-devel mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/xubuntu-devel
