Re: [tlug] Linux distro compatible with 740MHz Celeron / 457MB RAM

[Curt Sampson <cjs@example.com>]

On 2014-11-13 21:24 +0900 (Thu), Keith Wilkinson wrote:

> An acquaintance asks for recommendations 
> for a long-service LINUX that will run 
> on a  740MHz Celeron / 457MB RAM PC. 

The first thing you need to find out is if this is a server or a desktop
system. For a server, I'd give the server edition of Ubuntu 14.04 LTS a
try; the server editions tend to be fairly light, and 14.04 will have
maintenance out to 2019-04.

For a desktop system, you'll definitely need something a lot lighter
than Unity or Gnome. Lubuntu[1] uses the LXDE desktop environment,
which is supposedly one of the lightest around that's still fairly
full featured; it supposedly runs in about half the memory of the XFCE
desktop environment, which is in turn a lot lighter than Unity/Gnome.

It also depends on what you want to do with it; it could well be that
if the applications you want to use are simple enough, you could drop
the idea of using a desktop environment (session manager, etc.) entirely
and just go with a simple window manager (fvwm or whatever) and the X11
server. (This is how we all used to work in the Old Days.)

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubuntu

cjs
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Curt Sampson         <cjs@example.com>         +81 90 7737 2974

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