lubuntu-qa team mailing list archive

[Nio Wiklund <nio.wiklund@xxxxxxxxx>]

On 2013-06-18 23:32, Nio Wiklund wrote:
> On 2013-06-18 16:32, Nio Wiklund wrote:
>> Hi everybody,
>>
>> I installed the Saucy 32-bit daily build to a USB drive and could boot
>> it in my IBM Thinkpad T42 with Pentium M without any problems. It runs
>> well as it is (and if I install fake-PAE I will also be able to update
>> the kernel). See the attached picture :-)
>>
>> Best regards
>> Nio
>>
> I added today's daily build to 'grub-n-iso-n-swap', ran it live in my
> IBM Thinkpad T42 with Pentium M, and also made an installation into that
> old laptop.
> 
> I plan to reduce the RAM used with the boot option 'mem=256M' etc. It
> seems to work also when editing 'behind' the grub2 menu.
> 
> Best regards
> Nio
> 
Now I can report successful installation from 'grub-n-iso-swap' which is
useful for Pentium M and Celeron M. It is not possible (or I don't now
how) to bypass the full desktop screen. So it is somewhat heavier, and I
had issues with 256 MB RAM even when I used swap to disk.

I skipped updating via the internet and the 3rd party multimedia
software, and the installer passed over the threshold.

The installation was smooth at 384 MB RAM.

So the general conclusions from my previous test in a Dell desktop with
a Pentium 4 CPU are confirmed. I can install with 256 MB RAM only with
the help of swap to disk, zRAM is not enough. It is not even close. I
cannot do it with 320 MB, but it works repeatedly without swap to disk,
when RAM is increased to 384 MB.

-o-

There is a difference between my results and those of Ali. He manages to
install at 256 MB RAM without any swap to disk.

-o-

I support Jonathan's suggestion to add zRAM to the alternate installer
too. It would probably make it easy to install Lubuntu with 256 MB RAM,
and there are lots of old computers with 256 GB RAM. But I think many
(most?) Pentium M computers were delivered with 512 GB RAM or more.

-o-

I think we should simply recommend 'at least 384 MB RAM', and mention
that 'it is possible to install Lubuntu with 256 MB RAM, but it might be
difficult, and it helps to create a swap partition on the hard disk
before the installer is started'.

Browsing the internet is not pleasant below 512 MB RAM, because many web
pages and services need a lot of memory. But the computer can be used
for other tasks, where it might work well.

Best regards
Nio