Personally I'm used to RedHat/Fedora distros but I know there should be better choices in terms of speed, use of limited RAM, etc. Let's assume that disk space is not an issue.
I've also tried Knoppix which I find very nice and yet I haven't got time to check Gentoo. But what about Mandrake, Cobalt, SuSe, and others?
Comments are very welcome.
Regards,
Cacarulo
> Personally I'm used to RedHat/Fedora distros
> but I know there should be better choices in
> terms of speed, use of limited RAM, etc.
> Let's assume that disk space is not an
> issue.
> I've also tried Knoppix which I find very
> nice and yet I haven't got time to check
> Gentoo. But what about Mandrake, Cobalt,
> SuSe, and others?
This question makes "What's the best counting system?" seem like a no-brainer. :-)
Linux Weekly News (www.lwn.net) lists 355 different active Linux distributions and Distrowatch (www.distrowatch.org) tracks nearly 300. Of course, many of these are highly specialized (servers, routers, firewalls, embedded systems, etc.), and others are in early stages of development, but still, the sheer number is mind-boggling. There are at least a dozen or so that can be considered major distributions.
Distrowatch, BTW, is an excellent place to research out the different distributions, with descriptions and links to reviews.
Personally, I ran Redhat on my main home system and primary laptop until a couple of years ago when I switched to SuSE. I'm presently running the latest version, 9.1 Professional, and find it suits my needs well. The installation is a piece of cake, hardware detection is excellent (most configuration is automatic), and the update system is better than any others I have used. I liked the fact that the package included an installation DVD (in addition to a set of CDROMS). Since both my home system and my laptop have DVD players, this made upgrading painless - pop in the DVD, get it started, and go do something else for an hour.
For someone new to Linux, the SuSE 9.1 Personal Edition would be a good start. This includes a "live CD" similar to Knoppix, that allows you to check hardware compatibilities before actually installing to your system. Just boot the CD, and see if everything works. Remove the CD, and nothing has changed. Pop in the other included CD for a user-friendly hard drive installation.
Other "newbie-friendly" distros are Xandros and Linspire (formerly Lindows). I've installed both of these and found the routine to be as simple as installing a device driver. Pop in the CD, answer a couple of questions, and you shortly have a working Linux system. They will also install alongside of Windows, giving you a "dual-boot" system, for those not ready to give up Windows cold turkey.
Debian and more recently, Gentoo, are the darlings of the pocket-protector set. Personally, I have found the installations of both of these to be baffling, and Gentoo also takes forever, since the preferred installation method is to compile everything from source.
For Debian, at least, there is an alternative. Acting on a tip from someone in this forum, I recently downloaded and installed LibraNet (www.libranet.com), a Debian-based distribution, and found the text-based installation routine to be intuitive and user-friendly. I now have a solid, reliable Debian system.
Most of the current versions of the major distros require at least a P-III or AMD equivalent CPU and 256 MB RAM to run efficiently. They will run on less RAM, but will be using the swap partition a lot, which slows things way down.
This can be minimized by a careful installation, regardless of which distro is being used. For example, I have an older Toshiba laptop (Pentium I 266, 96 MB RAM) that I use for a "backup laptop." I was able to get SuSE 9.1 to run quite well on it by using a lightweight desktop manager (Fluxbox) instead of the default KDE, and turning off some of the processes that usually run in the background.
There are also distributions that are specifically designed for older systems with slower CPU's, less RAM and smaller hard drives.
The popularity of Knoppix has spawned a host of other "live-CD" distros based on Knoppix (which is itself based on Debian). Here are a few of my favorites:
Damn Small Linux (www.damnsmalllinux.org) - This live CD fits on one of those business card-sized mini-CDs. As the developer says, "Why? Because having a working Linux desktop distro on a 50 mb bootable business card CD is just too cool not to do." You can carry this in your shirt pocket or wallet, pop it into any computer and have Linux in a couple of minutes. It also has a script for a permanent installation on a hard drive, where it requires very little in the way of resources. I have an old P-133 w/32 MB RAM that runs this quite nicely.
INSERT (www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html) - Inside Security Rescue Toolkit. This is another business card-sized mini-CD that boots up and privides the user with Clam anti-virus and a set of FAT/Windows filesystem tools. I've used this to rescue several friends' virus-infected systems who had been told by supposedly knowledgeable people that their only hope was a complete reformat/reinstall.
PHLAK (www.phlak.org) - This one boots up and provides the knowledgeable user with a comprehensive set of, ahem, security tools. Definitely not for newbies.
I could go on and on. The nice thing is that anyone with a fast Internet connection and a CDROM burner can download the ISO, burn a CD, and try out any of these distros. For those lacking broadband, CD's can be ordered for next to nothing from www.linuxcd.org.
Aren't you glad you asked? :-)
I've printed this post for further study. I think I know have a better idea of what I am needing.
Thank you very much for the answer!
Sincerely,
Cac
> This question makes "What's the best
> counting system?" seem like a
> no-brainer. :-)
> Linux Weekly News (www.lwn.net) lists 355
> different active Linux distributions and
> Distrowatch (www.distrowatch.org) tracks
> nearly 300. Of course, many of these are
> highly specialized (servers, routers,
> firewalls, embedded systems, etc.), and
> others are in early stages of development,
> but still, the sheer number is
> mind-boggling. There are at least a dozen or
> so that can be considered major
> distributions.
> Distrowatch, BTW, is an excellent place to
> research out the different distributions,
> with descriptions and links to reviews.
> Personally, I ran Redhat on my main home
> system and primary laptop until a couple of
> years ago when I switched to SuSE. I'm
> presently running the latest version, 9.1
> Professional, and find it suits my needs
> well. The installation is a piece of cake,
> hardware detection is excellent (most
> configuration is automatic), and the update
> system is better than any others I have
> used. I liked the fact that the package
> included an installation DVD (in addition to
> a set of CDROMS). Since both my home system
> and my laptop have DVD players, this made
> upgrading painless - pop in the DVD, get it
> started, and go do something else for an
> hour.
> For someone new to Linux, the SuSE 9.1
> Personal Edition would be a good start. This
> includes a "live CD" similar to
> Knoppix, that allows you to check hardware
> compatibilities before actually installing
> to your system. Just boot the CD, and see if
> everything works. Remove the CD, and nothing
> has changed. Pop in the other included CD
> for a user-friendly hard drive installation.
> Other "newbie-friendly" distros
> are Xandros and Linspire (formerly Lindows).
> I've installed both of these and found the
> routine to be as simple as installing a
> device driver. Pop in the CD, answer a
> couple of questions, and you shortly have a
> working Linux system. They will also install
> alongside of Windows, giving you a
> "dual-boot" system, for those not
> ready to give up Windows cold turkey.
> Debian and more recently, Gentoo, are the
> darlings of the pocket-protector set.
> Personally, I have found the installations
> of both of these to be baffling, and Gentoo
> also takes forever, since the preferred
> installation method is to compile everything
> from source.
> For Debian, at least, there is an
> alternative. Acting on a tip from someone in
> this forum, I recently downloaded and
> installed LibraNet (www.libranet.com), a
> Debian-based distribution, and found the
> text-based installation routine to be
> intuitive and user-friendly. I now have a
> solid, reliable Debian system.
> Most of the current versions of the major
> distros require at least a P-III or AMD
> equivalent CPU and 256 MB RAM to run
> efficiently. They will run on less RAM, but
> will be using the swap partition a lot,
> which slows things way down.
> This can be minimized by a careful
> installation, regardless of which distro is
> being used. For example, I have an older
> Toshiba laptop (Pentium I 266, 96 MB RAM)
> that I use for a "backup laptop."
> I was able to get SuSE 9.1 to run quite well
> on it by using a lightweight desktop manager
> (Fluxbox) instead of the default KDE, and
> turning off some of the processes that
> usually run in the background.
> There are also distributions that are
> specifically designed for older systems with
> slower CPU's, less RAM and smaller hard
> drives.
> The popularity of Knoppix has spawned a host
> of other "live-CD" distros based
> on Knoppix (which is itself based on
> Debian). Here are a few of my favorites:
> Damn Small Linux (www.damnsmalllinux.org) -
> This live CD fits on one of those business
> card-sized mini-CDs. As the developer says,
> "Why? Because having a working Linux
> desktop distro on a 50 mb bootable business
> card CD is just too cool not to do."
> You can carry this in your shirt pocket or
> wallet, pop it into any computer and have
> Linux in a couple of minutes. It also has a
> script for a permanent installation on a
> hard drive, where it requires very little in
> the way of resources. I have an old P-133
> w/32 MB RAM that runs this quite nicely.
> INSERT
> (www.inside-security.de/insert_en.html) -
> Inside Security Rescue Toolkit. This is
> another business card-sized mini-CD that
> boots up and privides the user with Clam
> anti-virus and a set of FAT/Windows
> filesystem tools. I've used this to rescue
> several friends' virus-infected systems who
> had been told by supposedly knowledgeable
> people that their only hope was a complete
> reformat/reinstall.
> PHLAK (www.phlak.org) - This one boots up
> and provides the knowledgeable user with a
> comprehensive set of, ahem, security tools.
> Definitely not for newbies.
> I could go on and on. The nice thing is that
> anyone with a fast Internet connection and a
> CDROM burner can download the ISO, burn a
> CD, and try out any of these distros. For
> those lacking broadband, CD's can be ordered
> for next to nothing from www.linuxcd.org.
> Aren't you glad you asked? :-)
Parker you really do know your stuff.
Parker's Excellent Evaluation says it all, but I'll throw in a couple cents worth of biased reply.
Unless you're looking for a distro that will run off a floppy within 64K of memory, I would personally choose between either Fedora/Red Hat and Gentoo.
If easy installation and management are your priorities, stick to Fedora. Despite the separate branding, it's still got the full force of Redhat AND an active development community behind it, and you can get RPMs for any package you could ever want to install.
On the other hand, it optimum performance for CPU intensive computations is your thing, then Gentoo, the fastest growing distro, is for you. The core OS along with every little package you install is compiled and optimized to your needs. The downside is that it is a real bitch to install, but it's getting easier every release.
YMMV.
Good Kernels,
V
> Parker's Excellent Evaluation says it all,
Agree.
> but I'll throw in a couple cents worth of
> biased reply.
> Unless you're looking for a distro that will
> run off a floppy within 64K of memory, I
> would personally choose between either
> Fedora/Red Hat and Gentoo.
> If easy installation and management are your
> priorities, stick to Fedora. Despite the
> separate branding, it's still got the full
> force of Redhat AND an active development
> community behind it, and you can get RPMs
> for any package you could ever want to
> install.
> On the other hand, it optimum performance
> for CPU intensive computations is your
> thing, then Gentoo, the fastest growing
> distro, is for you. The core OS along with
> every little package you install is compiled
> and optimized to your needs. The downside is
> that it is a real bitch to install, but it's
> getting easier every release.
Yes Viktor, this is what I'm looking for! I've a Pentium III 1000 Mhz w/128 Mb of RAM. Fedora or RedHat are really very slow on these type of PCs and that's why I need a change.
BTW, I've noticed in Gentoo that there are different packages that apply to different types of processors (i386, i686, Pentium3, Pentium4, alpha, etc.).
If I wanted to know what type of processor I have I simply type "uname -p" and get "i686". But my processor is a Pentium III so I really don't know what to use, i686 or P3? What's the difference between i686 and P3?
Thanks in advance.
Sincerely,
Cac
> I've a Pentium III 1000 Mhz w/128 Mb of RAM.
> Fedora or RedHat are really very slow on
> these type of PCs and that's why I need a
> change.
There's really no reason that this should be true and switching distributions (even to Gentoo optimized for your CPU) will probably not result in a noticable improvement in speed. I'm guessing your main problem is too little RAM for the applications you're running. What things appear to be runninig slowly? You may notice a nice improvement if you upgrade to 512M or RAM. You may also want to investigate whether you're using the best video driver for your video card. Also make sure you're not running any server programs you don't need (Apache web server, email server, databases, etc). Although these processes should be swapped out of RAM if they aren't being used and shouldn't be using up your much of your RAM (you do have a swap partition, don't you?).
> What's the difference
> between i686 and P3?
I don't know for sure, but P3 may have more optimizations for your specific CPU as i686 covers P2's as well. Don't trust my answer though.
> There's really no reason that this should be
> true and switching distributions (even to
> Gentoo optimized for your CPU) will probably
> not result in a noticable improvement in
> speed. I'm guessing your main problem is too
> little RAM for the applications you're
> running. What things appear to be runninig
> slowly? You may notice a nice improvement if
> you upgrade to 512M or RAM. You may also
> want to investigate whether you're using the
> best video driver for your video card. Also
> make sure you're not running any server
> programs you don't need (Apache web server,
> email server, databases, etc). Although
> these processes should be swapped out of RAM
> if they aren't being used and shouldn't be
> using up your much of your RAM (you do have
> a swap partition, don't you?).
I have been using Linux for a long time since their first versions (RedHat 1.0, Slackware 1.0, etc.). What I've noticed is that the latest versions are consuming too much memory. At home I have a PII 266Mhz 64M RAM w/RH 7.3 and works pretty good.
Even RH 8.0 worked fine with my PIII but when I installed RH 9.0 everything became extremely slow.
Besides, I installed each version from scratch (I hate upgrades). Fedora (Core 2) is a little bit better but not by that much.
Of course, I do have a swap partition which size is twice the RAM.
Certainly, upgrading the RAM can solve the problem but I firmly believe that my system can be optimized for a better use of the actual resources.
> I don't know for sure, but P3 may have more
> optimizations for your specific CPU as i686
> covers P2's as well. Don't trust my answer
> though.
I see.
Thanks for your answer.
Sincerely,
Cac
> I have been using Linux for a long time
> since their first versions (RedHat 1.0,
> Slackware 1.0, etc.). What I've noticed is
> that the latest versions are consuming too
> much memory.
As the GUIs have become more mature and added more features, in general, they begin requiring more and more RAM. That's likely why earlier versions ran better on your system. Parker's advice to try Fluxbox or Xfce is sound. Both require radically less RAM than either Gnome or KDE. Switching distributions only because your current system is too slow is like buying a new car because you got a flat tire. Try to find out which applications are using up your RAM and try to find alternatives (it is likely the GUI - which desktop are you using?). You can run "top", then press capital 'M' to sort the list of running processes in order of percentage of memory used. That might be enlightening.
By just installing a new distribution, it is very likely you will be running the same software which will require the same amount of RAM and not solve your problem at all. Regards.
> As the GUIs have become more mature and
> added more features, in general, they begin
> requiring more and more RAM. That's likely
> why earlier versions ran better on your
> system. Parker's advice to try Fluxbox or
> Xfce is sound. Both require radically less
> RAM than either Gnome or KDE. Switching
> distributions only because your current
> system is too slow is like buying a new car
> because you got a flat tire. Try to find out
> which applications are using up your RAM and
> try to find alternatives (it is likely the
> GUI - which desktop are you using?). You can
> run "top", then press capital 'M'
> to sort the list of running processes in
> order of percentage of memory used. That
> might be enlightening.
Yes, there is one application that is using a lot of memory (around 30%): Mozilla. I have no problems with my Gnome desktop.
I use Mozilla as a mail client and as a browser. If I wanted to use OpenOffice then I must close Mozilla first which is something that bothers me a lot. I hope to overcome this problem with Gentoo. Also I would like to try SuSE.
> By just installing a new distribution, it is
> very likely you will be running the same
> software which will require the same amount
> of RAM and not solve your problem at all.
> Regards.
You are probably right but now I got very curious
Cac
> Yes, there is one application that is using
> a lot of memory (around 30%): Mozilla.
I recommend you try Mozilla-Firefox. It uses the same rendering engine but uses way less RAM than Mozilla since it contains only the browser instead of the billions of other things that Mozilla contains. I find the interface better than Mozilla as well. Try Mozilla-Thunderbird for your email client for the same reasons.
OpenOffice is also a huge memory hog. I believe it (unnesessarily) uses it's own GUI toolkit instead of GTK/Gnome or QT/KDE which accounts for the bloat (since if you're running Gnome you already have the GTK libs in RAM anyway). You may want to investigate other office programs if you are running on a low RAM machine. Gnumeric is as good or better than the OpenOffice spreadsheet in most respects and uses much less resources. Abiword might be worth a try to replace the OpenOffice word processing program too.
> I have no problems with my Gnome desktop.
While Gnome itself may seem to run smoothly, it is taking up significant RAM. Switching to Fluxbox or Xfce will free up some RAM for those programs that are visibly running slowly.
> I hope to
> overcome this problem with Gentoo. Also I
> would like to try SuSE.
I believe the optimizations you make by compiling your own programs with Gentoo will mainly be of optimizing for your CPU. They will still use the same amounts of RAM as they are currently using on your system if you run the same programs. The couple of nano seconds the CPU gives you because of the optimizations won't be significant compared to all the disk swapping your machine will still be doing. However, since you mentioned you don't like upgrading, installing Gentoo may be a good time to replace OpenOffice and Mozilla with the programs I mentioned above.
Let us know what you think of Gentoo when you try it out. I might give it a try myself eventually. Note: your small amount of RAM is going to make it extremely slow and painful to compile a complete Gentoo system if that is the path you choose.
> I recommend you try Mozilla-Firefox. It uses
> the same rendering engine but uses way less
> RAM than Mozilla since it contains only the
> browser instead of the billions of other
> things that Mozilla contains. I find the
> interface better than Mozilla as well. Try
> Mozilla-Thunderbird for your email client
> for the same reasons.
> OpenOffice is also a huge memory hog. I
> believe it (unnesessarily) uses it's own GUI
> toolkit instead of GTK/Gnome or QT/KDE which
> accounts for the bloat (since if you're
> running Gnome you already have the GTK libs
> in RAM anyway). You may want to investigate
> other office programs if you are running on
> a low RAM machine. Gnumeric is as good or
> better than the OpenOffice spreadsheet in
> most respects and uses much less resources.
> Abiword might be worth a try to replace the
> OpenOffice word processing program too.
> While Gnome itself may seem to run smoothly,
> it is taking up significant RAM. Switching
> to Fluxbox or Xfce will free up some RAM for
> those programs that are visibly running
> slowly.
> I believe the optimizations you make by
> compiling your own programs with Gentoo will
> mainly be of optimizing for your CPU. They
> will still use the same amounts of RAM as
> they are currently using on your system if
> you run the same programs. The couple of
> nano seconds the CPU gives you because of
> the optimizations won't be significant
> compared to all the disk swapping your
> machine will still be doing. However, since
> you mentioned you don't like upgrading,
> installing Gentoo may be a good time to
> replace OpenOffice and Mozilla with the
> programs I mentioned above.
> Let us know what you think of Gentoo when
> you try it out. I might give it a try myself
> eventually. Note: your small amount of RAM
> is going to make it extremely slow and
> painful to compile a complete Gentoo system
> if that is the path you choose.
Appreciate your advice and will try what you're suggesting. Also I will let you know about Gentoo which is already giving me some headaches
Sincerely,
Cac
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