I'm wondering about the feasibility of putting Linux on a 14ish year old laptop (same one from this topic). It currently has Windows 98 first edition on it, and my options are 98SE or Linux, I think. I've gotten the info off it now for sure, so I can do pretty much whatever with it. My concerns:

 

I have a 6 Gb hard drive, stated memory (on the HD itself). I think the actual is more like 5.45 Gb or summat.

I have 128 Mb of RAM and that is it.

It's got an IR port (Xircom) and some random 3Com Network card in it.

 

Is it possible to put Linux on such a laptop? If so, what version do you recommend? This is mainly an exercise in doing it, so the computer's not going to get a lot of use, [due to its unchangable specs] possibly low end Internet and word processing. Should I be concerned about drivers for the network card and IR port, or for anything else standard on the laptop (floppy, CD, screen, mouse/keyboard).

 

I am fairly certain I have enough HD space for it, but how much space does Linux take up?

 

If anybody has some general info/guides/tuts on Linux, it'd be greatly appreciated. I've never done anything with it before.

 

[For kicks and giggles: Do you think I could run OpenOffice, GIMP, or Firefox on this? :P]

Firefox will have no problem running on this if you do put a linux distro. But as far as that goes, I would go in the smallest Distros you can find.

Damn Small Linux (DSL), perhaps? :?:

Arch Linux runs on pretty much anything, but if you haven't used Linux before, you probably can't even install it. Damn Small Linux is also very lightweight, but it's also quite hard to actually install - it's usually ran from a USB stick or CD. It also has really outdated programs.

 

Xubuntu is something you could try. It's easy to install, but it may not work well on a computer that old.

 

Firefox probably runs on it. It's a weird program - the slower your computer is, the less resources it uses. (150 MB+ RAM on my quite new computer, half of that on my friend's ten year old comp) I don't know if OpenOffice works or not, but for word processing Abiword is quite good. It's really light too, unlike OpenOffice.

So I've been looking at DSL mainly because it was the first thing mentioned, and I'm wondering about a guide for general Linux, because I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm going to get Linux for Dummies from the library, so hopefully that'll help.

 

Basically a Complete Idiot's Guide to Linux, because I know nothing about it besides it's a free open source OS?

 

 

Edit: But live booting [or whatever] DSL from a CD looks pretty easy, I think I'll try that for the moment because it ought to work fine on that laptop.

I have a reasonable amount of experience here, I have Ubuntu 10.04 installed on a 12ish-year-old laptop. The thing is, this laptop that you're talking about is even worse, my laptop has 256mb of RAM, and I think that's about the limit for what Ubuntu will run reasonably on. So I would try DSL first maybe. There's also a way to install Ubuntu very cleanly without any bloat, but it's reasonably advanced and I wouldn't recommend it for a new user.

I got SLiTaz Linux, the low RAM version, and it works fine on the laptop. I'm just not sure what to do with it now since I've got linux on it; I dunno how to put GIMP or any extra stuff on it... :P

Try opening a console and typing su <enter>, and when you've entered your password, (Assuming you're connected to the internet):

tazpkg recharge
tazpkg get-install gimp

Not connected to the internet, can't because I don't have an ethernet port... And I can't figure out what's up with this random laptop, because it has a 3com NIC in it.

Well my 12 year old one doesn't have one either so it's no big surprise. I use either a USB WLAN card (Your laptop might not have USB, I'm guessing?) or a PC card for LAN. I don't think they're expensive, although it could take some time to find one (I got the card with the laptop so I don't know).

Well my 12 year old one doesn't have one either so it's no big surprise. I use either a USB WLAN card (Your laptop might not have USB, I'm guessing?) or a PC card for LAN. I don't think they're expensive, although it could take some time to find one (I got the card with the laptop so I don't know).

http://www.newegg.ca/Store/SubCategory.aspx?SubCategory=27&name=Network-Interface-Cards