lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Liam Proven <lproven@xxxxxxxxx>]

2009/7/23 David Robert Lewis <ethnopunk@xxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> Dear Liam,
>
> Just a note to voice my concern 192mb is really the Xubuntu spec

Absolutely.

> and the
> LXDE project is not providing anything new.

Do you mean LXDE or Lubuntu?

> I am right now busy wringing my
> hands, with a pain in my head, wondering why there is absolutely nothing I
> can do for poor neighbourhoods and the Windows 95 and 98 crowd.

I agree.

> Believe it
> or not, I would be installing Lubuntu now, if it were available. U-lite is
> all good and well, but it is more Windows 2000 territory.

Interesting. You feel that U-lite is aiming at too high a spec?

> A major problem is there is not enough RAM in the country, and we are pretty
> developed compared to the rest of Africa. I had a machine the other day
> running 1.8Ghz but with only 128mb Ram. What can one do, but continue to
> install Windows 98?

Indeed so. You don't specify where "the country" is, or who "we" are, though.

> Lubuntu should aspire to being the backbone for the Ubuntu Gandhi Remix
> Edition, see thread http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1210681

Um. To be honest, I took that to be a joke post.

> it
> should create an attractive desktop that revolutionises computing by making
> low-ram computing possible. Doesn't matter what speed the processor is, RAM
> is everything when it comes to installing. And in a world with virtually no
> net access, please do not expect the seed method to work. I have yet to see
> it work without premium bandwidth.
>
> So barebones LXDE please.
>
> --David.
>
> PS I lived on 8mb of ram on an 80mb hardrive for nearly five years, It was
> an apple, and it gave me great pleasure, why can't ubuntu do the same thing?

Well, quite.

> --
> 888          8 8                    8  8d8b. .d88 8 .d8b. Yb  dP 8   8 8  8P
> Y8 8  8 8 8' .8  YbdP  8b d8 888 8   8 `Y88 8 `Y8P'   YP   `Y8P8

Pardon?

I think that the basic point here is that it's very easy for
developers and users alike with multi-gigaHertz machines with gigs of
RAM and many megabits of broadband access to forget that there are
people with /no/ Internet access, not even dial-up, and for whom
10-15y old PCs are all they have access to.

In the UK there is a charity called Computer Aid:
http://www.computeraid.org/

They do not accept machines below what I consider quite a high spec -
broadly, "Pentium IV Processor rated at 1.4 Ghz upwards":
http://www.computeraid.org/whatpc.htm

And they almost exclusively use MS software. I suspect they may even
be sponsored by MS.

Windows 95 caused a massive boom in the PC industry. Many of those
machines still work and there is not much in the way of FOSS software
to run on them any more. Vector Linux once supported them but not any
more. Puppy Linux (which is OK but always runs as root, which is a
horrible massive security hole) and DamnSmallLinux will run on them
reasonably, but both are LiveCDs - whereas many machines of this age
can't boot from CD. Neither is elegant or neat in the way it installs
to disk and neither can readily be updated afterwards.

We really need a lightweight, upgradable, Debian-based Linux for
*really* low-end kit.

>From what I have read, Lubuntu is just going to be another respin of
Ubuntu with a different desktop and no use for this kind of PC at all.
As such, I predict it will sink into invisibility and obscurity.

Linux once ran on such kit. There's no reason it should not any more.

I reckon the target for decent, usable performance should be:

486DX4/100 or so
64MB RAM
1.2GB disk
ISA network and sound
boot from floppy, install from CD or over the network

Anything that ran on this would go like stink on a Pentium 1 machine
with 128MB and 4G of disk - a good box for Windows 98 from 10-12y or
so ago.

Even in London, I can and do give away such machines very quickly and
easily on Freecycle, even today.

-- 
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