Linux Question

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 3:47 pm

I downloaded Ubuntu today and ran it off a cd on our computer, and I really like it. Now I want to know what the system requirements are, they weren't on their site and I want to get the cheapest computer possible that will run it. Anyone know the requirements or whats the slowest computer you've run it on.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:42 pm

I've used Mandrake 10 with KDE on a 400 MHz computer and it was fine.

Here's a whole chapter on system requirements. It can run on pretty much everything provided it supports the hardware.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:47 pm

vb_master wrote:I've used Mandrake 10 with KDE on a 400 MHz computer and it was fine.

Here's a whole chapter on system requirements. It can run on pretty much everything provided it supports the hardware.

Thanks, that was about the speed I was planning. How much ram did it have? My school district has a warehouse sale that they sell old stuff at, and thats about the max speed they have.

vb_master · Post by **vb_master** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 4:51 pm

vskid wrote:
vb_master wrote:I've used Mandrake 10 with KDE on a 400 MHz computer and it was fine.

Here's a whole chapter on system requirements. It can run on pretty much everything provided it supports the hardware.
Thanks, that was about the speed I was planning. How much ram did it have? My school district has a warehouse sale that they sell old stuff at, and thats about the max speed they have.

I think I only had 64 MB in it, it was at school, my computer teacher basically let me have my own computer for whatever. He wouldn't give me the VNC passwords or, as he said, he would have to kill me

. I also had it on like a 400 MHz computer with 128 MB of RAM and it was fine as well.

Post by **gannon** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:03 pm

350Mhz+ with 64MB+ ram should be fine for most linux distros + gui, although more ram would be better. Dapper (Ubuntu 6.06) isn't easy to install on such minimum systems though since you have to run the install from the live cd (might be able to edit the cd boot params though to start a non-gui install)

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 5:39 pm

gannon wrote:350Mhz+ with 64MB+ ram should be fine for most linux distros + gui, although more ram would be better. Dapper (Ubuntu 6.06) isn't easy to install on such minimum systems though since you have to run the install from the live cd (might be able to edit the cd boot params though to start a non-gui install)

Although Ubuntu does have a custom setup for the inittab they should have boot setting. See if they have a button for you to press at the boot prompt (like F1, F2, ect.), though if it's like more other distros I've used try "no-gui" with no quotes. If not check the list of options, they should have one.

And good luck.

Post by **bicostp** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 6:04 pm

Generally, I wouldn't use less than:

Linux text-mode (HAL91, TomsRtBt, etc...) :386 (you can't use anything less than that anyways)

Fluxbox, Blackbox, Enlightenment, IceWM (DamnSmall, Puuppy Linux...) Pentium 1 166

XFCE: Pentium 2 200

GNOME, KDE, XPde, etc... (ubuntu, kubuntu, SUSE, Fedora...): Pentium 2 400

With RAM, more is always better. You can probably get old RAM for old machines fairly cheap now. I'd go with at least 128 MB, but I think it's best to load your motherboard with as much as it can support.

You said you can get throwaway PCs? That's good. Pick up a couple, and combine the RAM, hard drives, and optical drives from them into the faster machine. (I'm assuming they're towers of some sort.) Put one optical drive and one hard drive on each IDE channel; having 2 hard drives on 1 IDE channel can actually be slower on older hardware.

Here's someexamples: some of the rigs I've dealt with:

Digital PC 4000
Processor: P2 333
HD: 13 gig Western Digital
OS: Knoppix HD install
RAM: 256 MB
Comments: It ran pretty well. I only had something like 512 megs delegated to the swap partition. I donated it back to the school (in exchange for another PC)

Toshiba Tecra laptop
Processor: Pentium 200 MMX
HD: 500 MB Seagate (It came with a 13 gig Western with Win98 on it but I didn't want to erase it)
OS: Damn Small Linux HD install
RAM: 64 MB
Comments: CHUG CHUG CHUG... Wow this machine was craptasticly-slow, especially when using AbiWord or reading PDF files. More RAM would have helped, but I didn't have any that fit it.

Compaq DeskPro EN
Processor: P3 933
HD: 20 gig Quantum
OS: Fedora Core 5
RAM: 512 MB
Comments: Amazing. The OS runs perfectly on this thing. The only problems came up when I tried setting it up to play DVDs or any of the family of MPEG files (MP4, MP3, MPEG...), because they can't distribute the software to do that for free.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 6:11 pm

Wait a second,

Wikipedia wrote:By default Ubuntu requires 256 megabytes of RAM

Does it really?
And bic, at the district warehouse sale, my friends and I got 6 towers, a moniter, and misc stuff for $10. I've salvaged a total of 96mb of ram, a 8mb video card, and have a 2gb and 4gb hard drive. I'm gonna buy as much as I can the next time they have the sale.

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 6:48 pm

Whoa, you got to work on your N3rD grammar!

GB=Gigabyte
Gb=Gigabit (1/8 Gigabyte)

Anyways, just for the record, putting the swap partition on another hard drive (Or better yet, Flash Memory) would probably speed things up!

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 6:52 pm

atari2600a wrote:Whoa, you got to work on your N3rD grammar!

GB=Gigabyte
Gb=Gigabit (1/8 Gigabyte)

Hey, you know what, I don't care. And I didn't use either of those, I had both lower case, so

. To make you happy,

And bic, at the district warehouse sale, my friends and I got 6 towers, a moniter, and misc stuff for $10. I've salvaged a total of 96MB of ram, a 8MB video card, and have a 2GB and 4GB hard drive. I'm gonna buy as much as I can the next time they have the sale.

Post by **Sparkfist** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 7:10 pm

Well I've heard that people can get fedora Core 3 or even 4, SuSE 9.x running on systems with 96MB. So you have that as another option. If you can get more then 128MB of ram that should be enough to get Ubuntu to run. I don't think that it would need 256MB ram to just run, Gnome doesn't need that much ram.

@Atari2600a, I would advise against using flash ram for a swap partition. Generally speaking flash only has 300,000 re-writes and if your system use the swap frequently you'll ruin the flash ram very quickly.

If you really want to have a quick system, yes use a slave hard drive. I'd say if you don't need a massive amount of storage, namely a second/slave hard drive. Set the 2GB hard drive up to be your swap partion. 2GB is more then enough.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 7:28 pm

Sparkfist wrote:If you really want to have a quick system, yes use a slave hard drive. I'd say if you don't need a massive amount of storage, namely a second/slave hard drive. Set the 2GB hard drive up to be your swap partion. 2GB is more then enough.

Ever since someone on here mentioned that, I've been wanting to do it, I just haven't had my computer apart. Thats what I'll do the next time I clean it out (cats and computers don't mix).

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 7:46 pm

What!? ...& you call yourself a nerd!!! I take apart anything I can get my hands on!

Anyways, on the Flash subject, I know much older people (Which are MUCH more intelligent (most of them know some ASM to at least a good degree) who have set their page file to flash memory, & they've had no problems w/ it Yet (after multiple years)...

It's a lot faster than on a Hard Drive though, since it writes & reads faster, & therefore speeds up the overall performance of the machine...

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:02 pm

atari2600a wrote:What!? ...& you call yourself a nerd!!! I take apart anything I can get my hands on!

I do take stuff apart (I took an oldish cell phone apart earlier with a flat head instead of a hex), its just that its the family computer so I leave it alone except for cleaning, because I'd be in big trouble if I killed it. At scout camp last year I took my watch apart with a pocket knife.

So don't question my semi-supreme nerdshipness, I got 100% on the 9th grade science end-of-level test.

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Sat Aug 05, 2006 9:26 pm

Kinda reminds me of getting those small screws on a PS2 drive out (for recalibration of the drive) w/ a razor blade! When I was 8 or 9, I cut my thumb open w/ a pocket knife trying to tear apart a toy piano, just for the hell of it! (I tried to PUSH it up w/ my thumb. It may not come to you immediately, so try to visualise pushing up a pocket knife w/ your thumb...)