DSL on slow computers

Forum: Laptops
Topic: DSL on slow computers
started by: aqeq

Posted by aqeq on Dec. 05 2004,18:30

Hey everyone!
This summer, I'm going to my grandmother's house, and she has a spare laptop computer...unfortunately, it's a Pentium 150Mhz with 64 megs of RAM. I know DSL will run on it, but can somebody give me feedback on what I should expect? Thanks

Posted by cbagger01 on Dec. 06 2004,04:36

You should expect to create a swap partition or a DOS swap file in order to run large applications that exceed your available RAM.

Otherwise, it should work fine.

Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 06 2004,19:43

That machine with 64Megs of ram will run very very snappy...you wont be dissapointed. Just remember its not a 1.5Ghz machine its a 150Mhz machine!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by ico2 on Dec. 07 2004,21:11

lol, yes, runs quite happily on my 133 with 32, bootload could be a prob so take a boot floppy or old version just in case.

welcome to the forums.

Posted by cybered77 on Dec. 08 2004,05:18

DSL runs great on one of my old laptops, a toshiba 610ct (90MHz, 40Mb ram, 1gb HD) and the best of all it's using the internet UN-WIRED!!

yes! with a lucent orinoco silver, so your mom's spare laptop will run great with DSL

Posted by AwPhuch on Dec. 08 2004,17:55

On par, if you have over 32Megs of ram the "snappyness" of DSL increases almost straight up...

on older more hardware deficient machines with less than 32Megs of ram things get a bit choppy when the machine swaps constantly

that 64Megs of ram will SMOKE on that laptop!!

You will pleasantly pleased

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by ssgt2002 on Dec. 10 2004,11:36

This 64 MB of RAM is so much more than is needed to use all the cool stuff on an old laptop.
I used this system on a 486 with 20 MB of RAM and 200 MB harddisk it ran smooth. A little slow on the boot up and needed a boot floppy for it.
No actual CDrom so I installed with a better computer and then transferred harddisks

Posted by Wekkel on Dec. 17 2004,10:58

An application like Mozilla will take some time to load but overall, the performance on a P166 mmx Toshiba laptop with 64Megs installed is quite ok. Surfing Internet through a wireless connection with Firebird is doable, unlike IE6 under 98SE (which brought me to DSL in the first place).

Posted by Arto on Dec. 22 2004,18:18

I have a P133 with 32megs of RAM and it rus great except for mozilla

and the goddamn 60Hz refresh rate :angry:

Posted by dmslowlnxusr on Jan. 17 2005,06:35

I just got done installing dsl on this compaq presario 1090es, pentium 150Mhz, 32 MB RAM, 1.4 GB HD & am so far seriously impressed. Firefox may not work so good, but this Dillo seems great. Will be seeing you'all around the forums, thanks dsl, wk

Posted by lupus on Jan. 17 2005,22:02

I run DSL on armada 150 MHz, 32 M ram and 2 Gb hd. xmms working good without visualisation, Dillo is working great, but I can't see movies with Xine.

Posted by rossjman1 on Jan. 17 2005,22:59

I run dsl with Pentium1 100 MH with 16 megs of ram. It boots slow, but it runs fine.

Posted by vaskas on Jan. 20 2005,17:56

I have a Fujitsu Lifebook 735Dx (p1-133Mhz, 16Mb RAM) running DSL nicely. No Firefox browsing or DivX playing, of cause.

Posted by marco on Feb. 17 2005,18:03

Quote (rossjman1 @ Jan. 17 2005,17:59)

I run dsl with Pentium1 100 MH with 16 megs of ram. It boots slow, but it runs fine.

I have a hand-down Toshiba Satellite 225CDS with 16mg ram...what version did you use with your P1/16mg?

(I'm trying to know what to download!)

Many thanks,
Marco

Posted by AwPhuch on Feb. 18 2005,00:12

Quote (Guest @ Feb. 17 2005,13:03)

Quote (rossjman1 @ Jan. 17 2005,17:59)

I run dsl with Pentium1 100 MH with 16 megs of ram. It boots slow, but it runs fine.

I have a hand-down Toshiba Satellite 225CDS with 16mg ram...what version did you use with your P1/16mg?

(I'm trying to know what to download!)

Many thanks,
Marco

You might have to use the syslinux one..and make a boot floppy...a computer that old doesnt even know what boot from CD is!

Brian
AwPhuch

Posted by pcicchin on Mar. 01 2005,23:25

I have a 486/100 laptop w/ 8M RAM that keeps running out of memory - can I compensate for this w/ a Linux-swap partion?

FYI - I bought a $10 adapter on eBay that let me plug the laptop's mini harddrive into a desktop PC and installed DSL that way

Posted by cbagger01 on Mar. 01 2005,23:49

Yes

But keep in mind that your computer will not be very responsive if the hard drive is swapping stuff around 100% of the time.

Swap partitions are nice for that momentary surge in RAM usage, or for heavy multi-tasking where some of the applications are idle and can be swapped out as needed.

8MB + swap should be fine for text/console mode and you might be able to get XWindows running with Dillo if you are clever.