Puppy, Damn Small Linux don't let me down
I pulled the 30 GB hard drive from the $15 Laptop today, swapped in the original 3 GB drive (which wasn't bootable with its original Windows 98 install) and decided to throw distros at it. For those not following along, it's a Compaq Armada 7770dmt, 233 MHz Pentium II, with the biggest chink in the armor being RAM -- only 64 MB of it.
Here's the scorecard:
FreeBSD: I got pretty far, but the installer refused to write partitioning info to the drive.
DesktopBSD: Graphics flaked out before I could get too far in the install process.
Xubuntu 6.10 alternate install: Got very far, but it wouldn't copy apps to the drive, so the install stopped there.
OpenSUSE net install: Wouldn't boot.
Scientific Linux (science-lab spin of Red Hat Enterprise Linux): Wouldn't boot.
DeLi Linux 0.7.1: Everytime I get to the point where I'm supposed to tell the installer where the CD is, I forget to type in hdb, if that's indeed where it is. If I'm booting off of CD, shouldn't the system itself know where the CD is?
Damn Small Linux 3.3: Runs flawlessly from CD, frugal install to hard drive went without a hitch, and it runs well with a 233 MHz CPU and 64 MB of RAM.
Puppy Linux 2.14: Due to the slowness of Gparted in Puppy 2.16 and my preference of the plain Puppy over the 2.15 Community Edition, I did a conventional install of Puppy 2.14 (conventional being recommended over frugal install due to my low RAM). All runs well, and while not as snappy as Damn Small Linux (mostly due to the choice of apps in both distro), I could be very happy running Puppy on this nearly-10-year-old laptop.
(Editor's note: This entry, originally slated to run June 25, somehow never got posted. The material below has been added in the last few hours.)
After running a frugal install of DSL for awhile, I decided to build my own Debian system on the laptop. I did a standard install, added X, then Fluxbox. The biggest surprise thus far has been that when I apt-get a new app, it automatically shows up in the Fluxbox menus. That doesn't happen on my other Debian box, which was a Desktop install with GNOME, adding Fluxbox as an alternate window manager. Whatever they're doing over at Debian, they are doing it right. I'm having a lot of fun building up the system just the way I want it.
While I intended to work a lot from the command line, I also needed GUI capability. Dillo runs great, but I needed more. I installed IceWeasel, Debian's renamed version of Firefox, and it's running great. Takes about a minute to load, but after that it responds well. Remember, this is 233 MHz and 64 MB. The only nagging problem is that the laptop's clock battery is dead, so when I start it up, Debian does a lot of filesystem checking. Gotta figure out how to pull that battery and get a new one in there.
So add to the list above:
Debian 4.0: Flawless install. Started with "standard" install, added X, Fluxbox and my favorite apps with apt-get. Running great with low specs.
COMING UP: A full review of Puppy 2.16.1
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Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
Steven Rosenberg aims to learn what he does not know. He writes about it here.
How about giving Elive 1.0 a try? It'd be a great way to put the 100mhz/64MB RAM minimum requirement to the test. ^^
http://www.elivecd.org/
What CD-ROM drive did you pick up for the $15 laptop? I have the same laptop comming my way from http://www.lotsoflaptops.com
I assume that I need to pick up a older Compaq CD-ROM off of eBay.
I am planning on getting a CD-ROM drive and 64 MB of memory. Then loading Puppy Linux 2.15CE.
"Remember, this is 233 MHz and 64 MB".
Actually, I ran for about a year with a desktop (a Celeron Coppermine @ 566Mhz, and 32MB RAM) running an installation of Damn Small Linux, upgraded with some packages from Ubuntu Breezy. Normal running RAM usage only reached about 18MB with the version of Firefox provided by Damn Small Linux running, plus my patched installation of didiwiki. Strangely enough, it booted in the same amount of time (roughly 25 seconds) as my current laptop running on a P4 with 512MB of RAM, running ArchLinux. (Admittedly, the odd USB config used by ArchLinux is largely responsible for the wait).
Elive does look intriguing, and I would like to try it. I'm always looking for live CDs that are meant to be used that way, as well as the medium for a hard drive install.
Like the rest of the Linux community, I also read the various stories that came out about Elive in the past few days, and one thing disturbed me:
(quoted material begins here)
The Bonus Discs are made to insure the future of Elive, a donatation is required to download a bonus disc. When donating please keep in mind the numerous times you pay for coffee or a pack of cigarettes, which are perishable goods. Elive is the gift that keeps on giving, it never needs replenishing...Semper Fi
(quoted material ends here)
I don't begrudge a guy trying to make money off of his work, but there are plenty of distros out there that do not charge for the base system or any additional apps. They are community projects, and while they do sometimes request donations, they are not in exchange for the apps themselves.
And especially with a "1.0" release -- do you really think you're at the point where you can charge for ISO images? For software that's free on hundreds of other distros?
I think the open-source community knows that the way to make money off of a distro is to offer the software for free but charge for support, -- and any enterprise that uses your system in a business setting would probably not use your distro without that support and would be happy to pay for it.
But for the "casual" user, the hobbyist or even the Windows users switching over to Linux, I think you're putting the cart way, way before the horse.
That being said, I will give Elive a try, but not without the reservations I have for distros that charge.
Update: the bonus discs are available only for a donation, but I believe you can add packages the traditional way without a mandatory payment. The bonus discs themselves just make it easier to install the added packages, but by the time you learn how to burn an ISO into a disc, aren't you ready to use a package manager? Even though the developer of Elive makes a big deal about how this is now his full-time job, I think he should maybe slow down and have his distro prove itself a little before hitting people up for cash.
I got the CD-ROM drive over eBay for only $10. And it was an essential $10, too, because it's pretty hard to do anything without it. I already had an Orinoco Wavelan Silver PCMCIA wireless card, and that has worked flawlessly with every distro I've tried (it's 802.11b, no WPA, only 64-bit WEP, and I just use it wide open).
My floppy drive was dead, unfortunately, and, not surprisingly, The guy who runs lotsoflaptops, Bob Johnson, sells guaranteed working floppy drives for $10 on his other site (bobjohnson.com). I want to get one, but I haven't really needed it, since I really don't need a floppy drive to boot the laptop, and I don't use floppies to save anything. So I'll probably stick with the CD drive. It didn't come with a battery, and I think a $50-100 investment in a battery is something I really won't ever do.
One thing I do need to do is replace the "auxiliary battery," which runs the clock. Everytime I turn off the laptop, the clock resets, and that's a pain in the ass. The batteries only cost $10, but I don't quite know what I need to do to replace it -- taking the entire thing apart looks like a pain -- there are a lot of screws.
But part of the reason I got this laptop was for the fun of working on it. And I have had a lot of fun so far -- it's really been worth it.
I haven't written much about it, but I just acquired another laptop, this one newer and cheaper (actually it was free -- somebody gave it to me). Unfortunately, it won't run at all. I need to crack the case and change the power-input jack, and there's something in the middle of the case preventing me from getting it all the way apart. And since the $15 Laptop is working so well, I'm just going to stick with it.
Another thing -- I haven't bought new memory yet (I recommend Pacificgeek.com for the 64 MB EDO SODIMM SIMMS for the Compaq), but I really need to get two 64 MB SIMMS and max out the memory. There's 16 MB on the motherboard, so it maxes out at 144 MB.
Thanks for the links! I see that bobjohnson.com has used CD-ROM drives as well for $20. I will have to check eBay again as well. I have no need for a floppy drive either if I can boot off the CD-ROM drive. The wireless card I will be getting is a Cheifmax 802.11G with the RT2500 chipset that works with Linux.
http://3btech.net/ch5480wipcne.html