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Rob Beard wrote: > Hi folks, > > I might be preaching to the converted here but I thought I'd mention my > experience with Vector Linux this afternoon. > > Basically a customer of mine asked me to sort out his old IBM laptop for > a relative. Now this laptop was getting on a bit, it has 256MB Ram and > a P3-733Mhz CPU. It wasn't up to the job of running Gnome and Xubuntu > was too slow too (I mean painfully slow). So my only alternatives were > to either stick Windows 98 back on there (it had a Windows 98 licence) > or install a basic minimal Linux system. > > As I was running out of time I decided reluctantly to go for the Windows > option. I got Windows installed but then found that the video drivers > wouldn't install without DirectX 7, Windows Update wouldn't even load > (never mind not providing updates anymore) and Firefox 3.0 won't work on > anything less than Windows 2000. > > In the end I gave that up as a bad job (I presume I would have spent > hours digging out old software which would work on it) so I tried Damn > Small Linux. It booted up okay and I even got it installed but I found > that it doesn't have dpkg or apt (I thought it was supposed to be Debian > based too!) and the sound didn't work so I gave up on that. > > I then remembered reading about a recent version of Vector Linux in > Linux Format. Now it's been a good 8 years since I looked at Vector > Linux but I figured I'd give it a shot. I downloaded the Vector Linux > 5.9 Light Edition (which includes Fluxbox and LXDE). A reboot later and > I was installing it. Now I forgot that Vector Linux was based on > Slackware and my god things haven't changed, it reminded me of when I > first tried Linux back in the mid 90's when I tried installing > Slackware. Suffice to say I managed to get it installed (it was fairly > straightforward, not as easy as Ubuntu/Debian/Fedora etc) but easy > enough anyway. > > About 30 mins later everything was installed and I was browsing the > internet at a decent speed. The default browser is Opera (which was a > surprise to me) but sound worked, Flash worked, Abiword and GNumeric > worked and my god it was quick (it seemed as nippy as Ubuntu on my dual > core machine). > > I returned the laptop this evening and my customer was really happy. He > has a laptop running Vista which runs dead slow (not enough memory, slow > CPU and bogged down with junkware) and this notebook runs rings around > it. He did mention that he had heard about Linux and that it was good. > > So the moral of the story is, if you're looking for a lightweight distro > for an old machine then give Vector Linux a try. > > Rob > > > I've not tried Vector but I run Slackware on a couple of machines here... 2.4 gig P4's with 512MB ram and they fly! Slackware has to be one of the quickest, if not THE quickest distro I have used and I've used most of them! so I may well take a look at Vector for my HP 2133's Dave -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html