Monday May 19, 2008 Laptop Shuffle
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Last week, my wife got a new MacBook (maxed out at 4GB memory and 250 GB of disk). A really nice computer. Duncan now gets her old iBook (768 MB memory and 60 GB of disk), and I get his old HP pavillion xt125 (256 MB memory and 20 GB of disk). |
I don't plan to use it as my main laptop (I have a Powerbook for that), but I thought I'd set it up as a spare laptop that can be used around the house.
I thought about putting OpenSolaris 2008.05 on it, but the system requirements say you need a minimum of 512 MB of memory. Ouch.
I looked at Ubuntu 8.04 LTS (a.k.a. Hardy), but the recommended minimum requirements is for 384 MB of memory (although it does say the bare minimum is 64 MB, but "it is unlikely that the system would run well").
I burned the latest live CD for Damn Small Linux, all 50MB's of it, and there is no doubt that this boots fast and runs well, but most of the graphics look so 1980's, and it's unclear that the hacked on version of Firefox would be able to cope with some of the latest Web 2.0-centric web sites. Not for me.
I used the Kingston Memory Searcher to see if I could find some memory for it, but it doesn't know anything about this machine.
So I just put Windows XP back on it, from the initial set of CD's that HP supplied with the laptop. All 7 of them. I took off all the crap that they insist on installing, and loaded up essentials like the latest Firefox, iTunes, Quicktime and Acroread.
It started doing it's Windows updates. I had a quiet chuckle on one of the Security Updates ("Installing 1 of 92").
So I have a nice old clunky laptop that can be used to browse the web, play music, read eBooks etc. It's also one I don't mind taking in the garage and using to display build instructions (such as these), the next time I want to put something together.
But it's clear that the days are numbered for laptops such as these.
( May 19 2008, 08:36:53 AM PDT ) [Listen] Permalink Comments [19]
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For what it's worth, I'm running OpenSolaris on Virtual Machines with 384MB of RAM dedicated.
Posted by Thin Guy on May 19, 2008 at 08:40 AM PDT #
Why don't you try a slimmed-down version of Ubuntu? Xubuntu should run fine on this one, in my opinion.
I actually have a Medion laptop. battery dead, old processor (1.2 Ghz) and 256 RAM, and Xubuntu runs just fine on it.
True, Firefox chuckles a bit on modern sites. And Flash doesn't run so well (but who gives a crap about flash ;-) ). But overall, it's quite usable once you removed every single useless service.
Posted by Randall on May 19, 2008 at 09:14 AM PDT #
What about XUbuntu? http://xubuntu.org/
"Minimum system requirements
To run the Desktop CD (LiveCD + Install CD), you need 128 MB RAM to run or 192 MB RAM to install. The Alternate Install CD only requires you to have 64 MB RAM.
To install Xubuntu, you need 1.5 GB of free space on your hard disk.
Once installed, Xubuntu can run with 192 MB RAM, but it is strongly recommended to have at least 256 MB RAM."
Posted by krit on May 19, 2008 at 09:17 AM PDT #
Probably too late, but http://www.xubuntu.org/get says:
Minimum system requirements
To run the Desktop CD (LiveCD + Install CD), you need 128 MB RAM to run or 192 MB RAM to install. The Alternate Install CD only requires you to have 64 MB RAM.
To install Xubuntu, you need 1.5 GB of free space on your hard disk.
Once installed, Xubuntu can run with 192 MB RAM, but it is strongly recommended to have at least 256 MB RAM.
Posted by Rob on May 19, 2008 at 09:47 AM PDT #
Thanks everyone. Yup, I should probably have tried
Xubuntu. If for any reason, I need to reinstall an
O/S on this machine, it'll be the first thing I try.
Posted by Rich Burridge on May 19, 2008 at 09:58 AM PDT #
Every time I see a post like this I am forced to respond.
Vector linux!
I don't use Vector as my main OS (openSuSE) but I still think it's great. I installed it on a toshiba satellite from 1999 (64 mb ram and pentium 1 processor, almost 200mhz cpu speed). Its not fast but it does run. BTW running an nx client on it actually works really well.
I think it might fit your needs very well.
See ya
dh
Posted by David Herman on May 19, 2008 at 10:13 AM PDT #
http://www.memorystock.com/memory/HewlettPackardPavilionxt125.html
Rich - Perhaps you don't want to spend any money on this machine, but the first google hit for
HP pavillion xt125
is the link above which shows that you could add a 512M SO-DIMM for $36. With 768M of RAM, this machine should handle Ubuntu nicely.
Posted by Thomas on May 19, 2008 at 10:24 AM PDT #
crucial.com has a much better memory finder. That may be of some use. I definetly wanna throw my 2 cents in and recommend Xubuntu as well. Great for older machines. I got Xubuntu running in my garage on a much older machine so I can play music while doing laundry
Posted by Corey on May 19, 2008 at 10:54 AM PDT #
For laptops with 256MB ram:
Xubuntu or Mepis AntiX
Both give you a full-powered desktop (e.g. - Firefox, OpenOffice, Synaptic), but run very well in 256MB ram.
Posted by Tom Dison on May 19, 2008 at 10:57 AM PDT #
Excellent Thomas. Thanks! I think it's definitely
worth putting in another 512MB at that price.
Thanks also to everyone else (again).
Posted by Rich Burridge on May 19, 2008 at 11:04 AM PDT #
Using CPU-Z, I just checked the current
memory in the laptop. Each of the two slots
has:
128 MB DDR PC2100 (133MHz) MOSEL
The 512 MB memory modules at:
http://www.memorystock.com/memory/HewlettPackardPavilionxt125.html
are 266MHz and 333MHz, so (if I understanding
how memory works correctly), I'd need to
remove both the old memory modules and replace
them with 1-2 at the higher speed.
Either that or try to find a 512MB module
running at 133MHz. Even then, adding 512 to one
of the slots will only give me 640MB.
Posted by Rich Burridge on May 19, 2008 at 11:21 AM PDT #
A nice alternative is FVWM. While it can take a bit of time to set up, you can do it in a day and it works well on low resource machines, and low resolution machines, because you only see the things you want to see. My setup has left click: Internet Messenger, Music, Web browser, Terminal, middle click: various games, right click: sys admin options.
Everything is only a click away, and everything runs full screen (its virtual desktops are nice).
Posted by Adam Petaccia on May 19, 2008 at 01:07 PM PDT #
Your existing RAM is actually 266MHz DDR (or PC2100). CPU-Z probably wants to tell the actual clock rate of the memory bus. DDR uses both rising and falling edges of the clock signal, thus doubling the data rate.
Posted by Matti on May 19, 2008 at 03:08 PM PDT #
Thanks Matti.
Posted by Rich Burridge on May 19, 2008 at 03:17 PM PDT #
Ubuntu Gutsy with Gnome runs fine on my machine 256MB RAM. I have disabled Tracker and avoid running Java, Mono and Flash apps, otherwise it works just fine.
The Live-CD install might need more memory. The alternate installer should work fine.
Posted by 83.178.33.197 on May 19, 2008 at 03:36 PM PDT #
Modern KDE and GNOME are not in fact very big memory vampires on their own. On a typical Linux desktop, the two biggest memory eaters are Firefox (which tends to eat at least 100MB and up to 300MB, but you can tweak it quite a bit to keep it down) and OpenOffice. If you tweak Firefox, or use a slimmer browser, and stay away from the full-fat Office apps (which is frankly the same on Windows), 256MB is perfectly workable with any modern distro.
Actually, I ran GNOME from 2.4 to 2.16 on a P2/400 with 128MB of memory. It was slow, yeah, but certainly bearable.
Posted by Adam Williamson on May 20, 2008 at 01:25 AM PDT #
My mother has an older desktop than your laptop (128MB RAM) and she's running Fedora 7 with XFCE fine.
Of course it's not *that* fast, especially when she runs Firefox. But Midori is coming and will soon be usable, making Firefox unnecessary on low memory platforms.
So, with all the guys above who spoke about Xubuntu, +1 to XFCE (and choose the distribution you prefer as they will all basically have the same result).
Posted by bochecha on May 20, 2008 at 07:10 AM PDT #
I recently stumbled upon www.elivecd.org; a distribution based on Enlightenment and Debian. I haven't tried it, but for a low-spec machine it does seem to fit the bill.
Can apparently be run as a livecd or installed permanently.
Posted by Skogberg on May 20, 2008 at 10:17 AM PDT #
How about trying Puppy Linux?
http://www.puppylinux.org/
I find it works well on older machines such as your HP laptop.
Posted by Bob Boerner on May 20, 2008 at 05:47 PM PDT #