Best lightweight distro?

[phil_r]

Guys, I've got a PIII 500MHz laptop, 128Mb RAM, what's a nice lightweight distro to install? I'm thinking Slackware. I usually use Gentoo but I ain't having that thing compile stuff :-) I tried Fedora - ground to a halt (God they load up some crap).

Probably better to use Gnome than KDE too?

Phil.

[blackbelt_jones]

Debian is lighter than Ubuntu. I'm running Debian Etch on a PIII with 600 mhz.

[folkert]

I think both kde and gnome are not lightweight. I used xfce on a pIII 500mhz with 256mb ram, and wasn't impressed by speed, but could live with it until a few months ago. fluxbox or icewm might be better fit, but I never tried.

[retsaw]

You might want to try one of the mini distros, Puppy Linux is very nice, and lightweight. There are others, but Puppy is the only one I've tried recently.

For a regular distro I like Arch Linux which is a rolling release distro optimized for i686, it doesn't configure things for you which means you need to do a bit of configuration when setting it up, but if you don't mind that it gives you more control in return and doesn't take a lot of maintenance once set up.

[mrrangerman43]

Debian Etch will run on it but you will need to use a light WM. Xfce is a little faster than Fluxbox but Fluxbox will work fine. I have a laptop that's a pI 233 with 384mb ram that runs slackware 10.1 without any problems. It's not the fastest but it is usable, so slackware would work fine also.

[spowel4]

I'd recommend puppy linux or maybe slackware/arch linux with either fluxbox or icewm.

[phil_r]

Wow, thanks guys... I've actually got Slack 12.1 on there now and I'd already decided to give XFCE a go, it looks pretty nice. So far it seems to be ok.

Thanks for all the responses, much appreciated!!!

[tkdummy]

checkout:-

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LXDE
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributi..._Distributions
www.vectorlinux.com (lite)
www.delilinux.org
www.fluxbuntu.org
ubuntulite.tuxfamily.org

[phil_r]

Was having issues getting wireless working on Slack. Tried Debian Etch lightweight (the XFce version) and no wireless support at all

Saw tkdummys post and thought VectorLinux sounded good. Gave that a try, it's awesome :-) Really easy to install, wireless set up in 3 easy steps, fast and only 2gb of disc space. It's a great distro.

[bigboppercole]

Take a look at AntiX. http://antix.mepis.org/index.php/Main_Page It's base is Mepis, whose base is Debian. I have it running on a couple older PCs, and it runs great. I highly recommend it.

Al

[blackbelt_jones]

If you liked Slackware and XFCE, I suggest you look into Vector Linux standard. Vector is a VERY fast and light build of Slackware, with some nice features added to make it less vanilla. I'd look for information on the Vector linux site about wireless support or maybe ask on the on the Vector Linux Forum before committing. Certain things are better supported on the Deluxe version, which will cost you between 15 and 25 bucks depending on what form you take it in. Or, there's also Vector 5.8 soho, an earlier form of the Deluxe version, for free.

OR you can get yourself a Sidux CD try it as a live CD, If it work good for your wireless, you can go ahead and install it, it's Debian Sid, which is a lot more likely to have good wireless support than etch.

In general, remember that live CDs can can give you a chance to try wireless support without installing.