Good Linux for old computers...

[roamer_1]

I have this old netbook, see... I really can't tell you which size atom is in it, but it is an Asus eeePC that originally came with xp32 home. It was originally my PIM back in the day, and I am a sucker for a clam-shell and a real keyboard. So I have been beating this poor dead horse down the road for nearly a decade...

Anyway, in the last upgrade, it got 2 WHOLE GIGS of RAM, and an old 130g hdd I had laying around... But I ditched XP finally, it being so old that I was having problems just getting a modern enough browser to capably surf the net. So after asking a bunch of folks what to put on it, the consensus was Mint XFCE, which did indeed install perfectly, but O.M.G... S.L.O.W

So I put up with it for about a year... and it does function reliably, but it really isn't useful anymore. my tablet is several generations newer. But like I said, I dang near love that ol netbook... and prefer the clamshell. It's been with me a long, long time.

Anyway, it's up against the wall now. I am ready, finally to pitch it... But I will give it ONE MORE CHANCE, dang it. All it needs to do is run Firefox and Thunderbird well, and I set that as my goal. with that alone, it becomes a serviceable PIM again, and anything more is bonus.

Damn Small Linux - DSL made it scream, and I may just go back to it and hack the drivers in... but that's what I would have to do. No sound, no LAN, no WLAN.

Tried DSL-N next, A DSL fork, by DSL, which is fatter and a wee bit more compatible, but not with this.

Tried Mint Mate - A waste of time... Maybe even a bit fatter than the Mint XFCE I started with.

Then I ran into Lubuntu... Definitely faster than the native Mint, and that running from a liveCD.
Install was flawless and easy.
It isn't a speed demon, now, but it runs FF and TB with a little lag at startup, but once running, it is quite responsive... FAR more so compared to Mint.
AND it ain't bad in Libre Office.
AND... wait for it... SAMBA!!! Yes, fans, I can get to my windows shares.
It has Aptget and updates just fine, and has all the normal access to software...

It is reasonably quick internally, and is responsive on the LAN, surfing normally, with just a touch of slow... WLAN is a different story, so I will tear it down and try for an 'n' WLAN, and I think the old girl is serviceable for another few years.

Two days in: This was a good test, as it is about as slow a machine as anyone might have...
And I will recommend Lubuntu pretty highly.

[Cyber Liberty]

Good advice.  Is that like Ubuntu?

[roamer_1]

Good advice.  Is that like Ubuntu?

Well, I reckon... It's a fork
http://lubuntu.net/

[Cyber Liberty]

Well, I reckon... It's a fork
http://lubuntu.net/

Looks pretty snazzy. 

[Cyber Liberty]

Looking at your link, it appears you have plenty good horsepower for that distro.  And you got Samba!  That's kewl.

[roamer_1]

Looking at your link, it appears you have plenty good horsepower for that distro.  And you got Samba!  That's kewl.

I know, right?
It's a great, simple OS... Makes me want to try it on something with horsepower 
no bells and whistles, but the necessities are there... and it would flat scream on a multicore with a decent bit of ram

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

The thing I really like about ubuntu, especially for ancient hardware, is the LTS (long term support) line.  If you're not already on one, I'd suggest switching over now.

If you want to know about your cpu:

cat /proc/cpuinfo

If you want to know a whole lot more:

sudo dmidecode | more

And while we're talking, for peripherals there's lsusb and lspci.  Both will take an optional -v to tell you more than you might want to know, and lspci will take a -k to show the kernel module.

I also just came across a really cool package called hardinfo, which gives you a ton on info in one GUI.

Back around 1999/2000 a bunch of vendors shipped these crap modem/wlan/sound that had hardware support for pretty much jack, everything was done in software, and they didn't like to release the details.  It was kind of a pain.  If you have one of these, and it's still not working, PCMCIA is the easiest answer if it's an option.

[roamer_1]

Back around 1999/2000 a bunch of vendors shipped these crap modem/wlan/sound that had hardware support for pretty much jack, everything was done in software, and they didn't like to release the details.  It was kind of a pain.  If you have one of these, and it's still not working, PCMCIA is the easiest answer if it's an option.

Thanks for all that... and no need, Lubuntu set this thing up tight... everything is working great, and in fact, it seems to me to handle the power management better than the Mint that was on it before! Mint used to just die when on batt - no warning, and run out of power, dead...
Lubuntu does warn, and will hibernate and shut itself off... Mobedda

[InHeavenThereIsNoBeer]

Thanks for all that... and no need, Lubuntu set this thing up tight... everything is working great, and in fact, it seems to me to handle the power management better than the Mint that was on it before! Mint used to just die when on batt - no warning, and run out of power, dead...
Lubuntu does warn, and will hibernate and shut itself off... Mobedda

Speaking of power, after installing ubuntu for the first time on a couple machines I noticed that one of them was not throttling the CPU properly (lscpu showed CPU MHz equal to CPU Max MHz even when the system was not under any real load).  I had to install cpufrequtils -- but only on that machine, the other one throttles fine w/o it.  Go figure.

[roamer_1]

Speaking of power, after installing ubuntu for the first time on a couple machines I noticed that one of them was not throttling the CPU properly (lscpu showed CPU MHz equal to CPU Max MHz even when the system was not under any real load).  I had to install cpufrequtils -- but only on that machine, the other one throttles fine w/o it.  Go figure.

Yeah... Weird.
This one is handling the board way better than mint.. which is dumb to me... I mean Ubuntu and Mint are a lot the same, and I am pretty sure their detection routines would be the same... Driver base.. the same... But this cut down version is handling it better than the full.
Beats all.