ubuntuforums-unanswered team mailing list archive

[Tom <question76843@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Question #76843 on Ubuntu changed:
https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/76843

Tom proposed the following answer:
Paul Yearwood contacted me about a DistroWatch post i made about this to
say

"
I have a Compaq Presario that has a PII 400 with 312 Meg of RAM. I have use several "small" distros on it.

I have used PuppyOS Live. It flies when it is loaded entirely into RAM.
I can mount all drives, HDD and USB, It also has the advantage of being
the only safe way against malware.  Being Read-Only, nothing can take
over your computer. If only Windows had a way of making a live CD, a lot
of botnets would not be possible.

Another I used is Debris which is a mini Ubuntu version. It is live and
installable. Warning: The stable version is, I believe, based on Ubuntu
7.04 which is no longer being supported up stream. (The newer version
1.8.3 is based on U. 8.04.) I liked it but by the time I added back in
the features I wanted like Open Office instead of Abiword and since it
was not updatable (ver 1.04), I just re-installed full size Ubuntu.  I
now have Debris 1.9.x on a 4 Gig  harddrive as a backup for my main
system.

I currently have VectorLinux 6 on the Compaq. It is a full size distro
but it has ALSAconf utility that allows me to use the onboard audio,
something that Ubuntu does not have. There is an elaberate CLI script
that I can use but having ALSAconf is easer.  It works fairly decently
with the PII 400 and the 312 Meg RAM. Be sure to get the Version 6
Vector as it has an improved graphic installer, but you can choose the
text based, if you like a challenge.

One piece of information you did not mention was the size of the hard
drive on your Toshiba. The Compaq is 8Gig with 3.5 Gig currently free
using the Vector. The Debris 1.8.3 on the 4 Gig has about half left. I'm
not using that at present so I can not give an exact reading but the CD
image is 185.5 MB. It is also a live CD.

VectorLinux also comes in a 64 bit ISO, so I have it on a separate HDD
for my main system, a Celeron 430 1.6 GHZ with 2Gig RAM.  As far as I
can tell, there is some but not that major difference in performance
between the old 1998 Compaq and the home built Celeron Shuttle using the
same version but 32 bit on the old and 64 bit on the new.

Hope this will give you some ideas on what you can use on your Toshiba.
"

I too hope this helps!  I think that installing regular Ubuntu on your main machine as a dual boot (to keep Windows as an option) will help you get used to linux more in order to gain the experience that may help bring the toshiba back to life. 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot
However, it might also work well the other way around.  Struggling with a tougher distro might help installing & using Ubuntu very much easier.  Choices, choices :)

Either way, good luck and regards from
Tom :)

-- 
You received this question notification because you are a member of UF
Unanswered Posts Team, which is an answer contact for Ubuntu.