distro for old machine and non-expert users
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad. Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work? The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users.
Well, usual answers would be - Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu-Mate (in that order) - same on Debian side Something off left field, try "AntiX". It's Debian + XFCE, so you can do "apt-get" all you want. I couldn't find similar smallish distro on the right field... -- William On Wed, Dec 30, 2015 at 01:42:45PM -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work?
The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users. --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
I don't see why that can't be tweaked to suit your chipsets. Only recently (around 2013) did the Linux kernel drop support for the 386 processor. Also IMO the 865G is not terribly "ancient". I would change to a different Linux. If you must have Ubuntu, I would try one of Ubuntu's side projects. I use Ubuntu Studio (14.10 LTS I believe) and it didn't install Unity (nor was it offered to me, iirc). It's using XFCE, which is probably closer to what you want. Ubuntu Studio may not suit your needs but I am under the impression that the other side projects of Ubuntu may have avoided Unity in some cases. You might want to look into that. If old hardware is a priority (sounds like it), I would just go with Debian, and avoid Ubuntu totally. Or Slackware, but only as a last resort. I mention Slackware since they are touted to have the best support for old hardware. Paul King On 30 Dec 2015 at 13:42, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote: Date sent: Wed, 30 Dec 2015 13:42:45 -0500 (EST) From: "D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh@mimosa.com> To: Toronto Linux Users Group <talk@gtalug.org> Subject: [GTALUG] distro for old machine and non-expert users Send reply to: "D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh@mimosa.com>, GTALUG Talk <talk@gtalug.org>
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work?
The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users. --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
On 30 December 2015 at 13:42, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work?
The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users.
Elementary OS (https://elementary.io/) might be worth a look. I've installed it and played with it, but it's not for an inveterate tinkerer like myself. Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elementary_os for their ideas about how an OS should act (which suggests it would be a good choice for your target audience ... if the video works). -- Giles http://www.gilesorr.com/ gilesorr@gmail.com
You might try Linux Mint MATE and/or Xfce (latest is in beta). I'd recommend you read this blog entry for Linux Mint, in regards to MATE version (for juxtaposition with Cinnamon version). http://blog.linuxmint.com/?p=2038 regards, Daniel Villarreal http://www.youcanlinux.org/ If you're wanting to learn newer ways of doing things, you'd probably going to want to look at CentOS 7, recently updated, and/or Fedora. You might want to look at some different *BSD variants, also. I like the lack of bloat in OpenBSD. On 12/30/15 13:42, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work?
The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users.
On Wed 30 Dec 2015 13:42 -0500, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
I'd probably aim for something with fluxbox/openbox. Crushbang, archbang?
Hugh, Ubuntyu allows you to install FVWM. I am sure it will allow you to install other lightweight window managers. I am running FVWM under Fedora. On Wed, 30 Dec 2015 13:42:45 -0500 (EST) "D. Hugh Redelmeier" <hugh@mimosa.com> wrote:
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work?
The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users. --- Talk Mailing List talk@gtalug.org http://gtalug.org/mailman/listinfo/talk
-- Howard Gibson hgibson@eol.ca howard.gibson@teledyneoptech.com jhowardgibson@gmail.com http://home.eol.ca/~hgibson
On 30/12/15 01:42 PM, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
Machine: old P4 with 1G of RAM an 80G HDD. Was running Ubuntu 10.04 LTS.
I'm trying to install Ubuntu 14.04 LTS but Unity is a real pig with the ancient Intel 865G graphics. Any desktop that tries to use 3D acceleration will be awful. I strongly suspect Fedora's Gnome would be bad.
Is there an easy choice? Would Mint work?
The system should be self-explanatory to casual former Windows users.
+1 for an Ubuntu spin, like Xubuntu or Lubuntu. Or in any other distro, just set up a lightweight desktop environment like XFCE or LXDE. Those desktop environments are lightweight enough to run well on older hardware, yet still familiar enough without much customization for casual former Windows users.
participants (8)
-
Blaise Alleyne -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Daniel Villarreal -
Giles Orr -
Howard Gibson -
Loui Chang -
Paul King -
William Park