Installation information

[NarakuITA]

Hello everyone, I have a question to ask, especially for more experts.
I have an old Toshiba satellite pro 4600 with 512mb of ram, with Windows 2000 currently installed, I wanted to know if there is a Linux operating system that can be installed on the PC without problems.
And if this operating system recognizes all the peripherals that make up the laptop, and if it recognizes or is there a way to install the Belkin Wi-Fi card (Wireless G Netbook Card) Model: f5d7010.

A thousand thanks!

[grindstone]

The images are live discs--try one in your optical drive and tell us     The PC Card support may be dicey (you can tell us), but it seems you also have onboard wireless and of course wired options.  It may also be possible to tether a phone by usb as another option. 

Seems ndiswrapper was used 20 years ago.  Some reports it's a Broadcom 1006, others that it's atheros chips.  When you get it booted, you can post

inxi -xv6

results.  And

lspci

while we're at it. 

Still looking for what chipset is used so we can determine firmware.  What's clear is that people have used them with linux for a long time, but much has changed over that time.

   

[NarakuITA]

Thanks for your answer. I will try to start the operating system with the live CD, hoping that the minimum requirements satisfy this operating system.
Also because I'm also seeing other distributions that can work for such old PCs. I'll let you know!

[majenko]

Good luck with that. I have a Satellite Pro 4200 here that I've been fighting to get DSL onto for some time now, but to no avail (and I'm a Linux veteran....). I'm on the verge of posting here for some help, I just have a few more things to try before I do. Let us know if it works for you.... All I will say is, in my recent experience, these old Toshiba laptops are ... odd.

[NarakuITA]

I forgot, does this Linux distribution have various languages? Even Italian?

[grindstone]

Yes, but not by default.  English, French, Spanish, German & Portuguese are included by default (under F2 at boot).  Locales for other languages may be installed using the Control Center or command line if you are comfortable doing so.  Many things have been reduced to make DSL fit a CD.  Those things are restored when running the "DSL File Restore" post-install.  If you wish only live use localized for IT, you can customize things and make a persistent live version for yourself as you see fit later. 
   
   
   
   

[NarakuITA]

I downloaded version 2024, and boot from USB in live. However, the CPU is constantly at 100%. Maybe it's not suitable? Or why is it booted on USB 1.0?

EDIT: I don't think it's the USB because I tried the Tiny Core Live and it's amazing.

[grindstone]

Unknown what version of USB your computer supports. It may be possible (with Plop) to have it use v2 etc (or not, hardware-depending, but that would take a CD, too). It also matters what you did/were trying to do (w/o any swap space & with 512MB). The live versions run more slowly than the installed versions (they are compressed, after all), so if you had Firefox open with a couple tabs, yes, it would likely overburden the live system in 512 and w/o swap. Previously, it also took a while for things at first start (you could look at processes in conky listing to see cc, etc). The feedback would be useful if you could please try it again & do nothing but just wait a while and see if you have the same CPU usage issue.

TC is indeed amazing but if you look down a layer deeper, there's not much there to begin with. DSL is pretty useful right-away, comparatively.

[NarakuITA]

I'm looking for a Linux distribution that's more suitable for my PC. Now as already mentioned the USB ports are 1.0 and not 2.0. It's about the CPU, it's constantly at 100% without doing anything. Coincidentally I tried the "core" version of Slitaz and this also works very well in Live.
Both operating systems, Tiny Core and Slitaz core in live, are very performing, the PC is not slowed down and if it does not perform any operations the CPU is stopped. I think Damn Small is too heavy for this old PC. I couldn't give you any other feedback. I'm not a Linux expert unfortunately. I'm trying to learn now and bring an old PC to life.