help :)

[Alan Jackson]

On Wed, 30 Jul 2008 12:13:39 -0400
Leon Goldstein <metapsych at earthlink.net> wrote:

> trip_g at att.net wrote:
> 
> > Hello, my names trip.
> >  
> > Ok, so i bought a p.o.s. computer.  Currently i am trying to get linux 
> > on it..HD only have 3 gig lol 32 mb ram... now..i was told i could run 
> > linux of this.  I would like to learn how to code/script video 
> > games.movies.music..etc...so i was told to get familair with linux.  
> > Now im sure i will upgrade this pc soon.  But for the time being...i 
> > simply need to know how to download the linux..i would like 
> > slackwear.  So basically i bought a project pc in order to learn mor 
> > so i know what to do in college..so any help would be appreciated.
> >  
> > Thx Trip
> 
> 
> To be blunt, you will not likely find a Linux OS, or any other OS for 
> that matter, that can do what you want with 32 MB of RAM.  You can 
> install a "light" Linux on your equipment, assuming your critical 
> hardware, i.e. video card/chip, is compatible, but you do not have 
> enough memory to run a complex graphicical desktop such as the popular 
> KDE and Gnome.  You may be able to use one of  several simple graphic 
> desktops.
> 
> Your hard drive is also marginal.  Since you are light on RAM, you will 
> need to dedicate at least 64 MB to a "swap partition " which is separate 
> from the  Linux partition, unlike Windows.
> 
> You did not identify what CPU you have; as a practical matter, I would 
> not recommend running a  contemporary Linux with anything slower than, 
> say, a Celeron (PII) 1 gHz.  (If you are so fortunate as to have an AMD 
> K6-III+ CPU, than you are in good shape.)
> 

My old system in the corner is
Processor    : i586 with 53.04 BogoMips
Memory RAM   : 80 MB (2604K kernel, 3048K cache, 71184K shared, 2188K free)
Swap area    : 64 MB (2436K used, 64088K free)

but I run it text only. I briefly tried to get a light GUI running, but it
just wouldn't fly. So it collects my weather station data and processes
it every night, and 2 or 3 other light batch tasks. It's been up
 16:54:40 up 349 days,  6:33,  5 users,  load average: 0.01, 0.02, 0.00

Not too shabby...

BTW it is running a several year old version of gentoo.

I also took an old Windows ME system and installed 500 Mb memory and a
wireless card, set it up with Ubuntu Gutsy - took about 2 hours - and
it's been cooking ever since, for my Dad.

-- 
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| Alan K. Jackson            | To see a World in a Grain of Sand      |
| alan at ajackson.org          | And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,         |
| www.ajackson.org           | Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand |
| Houston, Texas             | And Eternity in an hour. - Blake       |
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