Will Opensuse 11.1 work on an PC with 256MB RAM good?
now xp home is installed and it is very slow (about 8Min boot time.
I would use then XFCE as desktop environment
the pc is mainly used for internet (firefox or opera) and eventually thunderbird.
Or has Opera a mail funktion too?
I think the PC has an Intel Pentium PC with 1,6 GHZ.
With XP it is not nice too work so I need another solution.
And I won’t spend money on this PC, because soon I will buy a new one.
It will run, but it will be a little cramped in RAM, especially if you start any memory hungry apps like Firefox. 256MB is about the minimum for a GUI. CPU speed is fine.
Is Opera better with this RAM?
I have a “test” pc that has the same specs. I am running 11.2 Alpha0 and KDE 4.2 on it. The pc works fine, at least as well as it did with XP.
The problem was, I couldn’t get it to install. It has no DVD drive. It wouldn’t boot from an external DVD. The Live CD install wouldn’t finish, I guess because of the low ram. What I did was a net install with the mini iso. Once it was in, all was ok.
No 3D though.
I just installed OpenSUSE 11.1 on a Compaq Armada laptop (850 mhz PIII, 316 mb RAM, and 30 gb hard drive) It’s working fine so far, with the exception of my wireless adapter and it won’t boot back into Windows. If I could fix the former, I might not be so worried about the latter.
Yeah, try Opera or Konqueror.
Also xfce is not automatically the lowest footprint desktop. OpenSUSE has done wonders in reducing the footprint of KDE. Try KDE, you might be surprised how little it can run in these days.
+1 for installing from DVD or using the NET install CD. It will be hard to boot up with the LiveCD and then install, with that amount of RAM.
There are things you can do to reduce the RAM footprint once installed. Search these forums and the wiki for performance tips; googling opensuse + performance will also return several blog posts with some tips. When you’re that tight, every little bit will help. Also, XFCE is modular, so it is possible to configure it a bit lighter. Finally, there are other window managers which are not full-blown desktop environments which have a very small footprint.
You probably can fix the former by going to swerdna’s page.
From which medium shoud I install
you say not from cd
is it from dvd better?
can i as newbie do a net install or is that too difficult
The net install is easy - download and burn the net image and then install. The installation downloads all the necessary files from the opensuse repo.
only needed files or does it load the programs that are on the live cd are preinstalled down too?
I would like to define on my own which not-needed-files are downloaded. is that possible?
The process is essentially the same. The only dependency is having an adequate (not dial-up), dependable net connection.
I will probably install via Mini CD.
In vbox it worked with 256MB but Live installation not really.
If I ever should install it on this PC I will tell you how it worked.
buugmenot wrote:
>
> only needed files or does it load the programs that are on the live cd
> are preinstalled down too?
> I would like to define on my own which not-needed-files are downloaded.
> is that possible?
I have to use the network install on a couple of boxes with only CD readers.
The install is identical (in content and function) to the DVD install - you
get to select all sorts of options and configurations. Only the necessary
files/packages are downloaded. On the same internet hookup, a basic KDE 3
install takes about 1/3 the time it takes to d/l the DVD iso via torrent.
–
Will Honea
I tested out a similar spec system with 11.1-RC1 and KDE4. I found it worked rather than meltdown into pure thrashing.
IMO the desktop would be alright for occasional use, say to configure a SOHO server. Really such a system just isn’t large enough for comfortable switching between desktop applications and browsing the modern web, even despite FF3’s drive to reduce memory consumption and improve performance (3.1 beta is using even less). There’ll be significant lag after switching applications to page them in. A 512 MiB box, with dual 450 Mhz CPUs was preferable.
So perhaps you could invest a small amount on some second hand RAM, as a stop gap. The time spent doing this, will pay off more than tuning recommendations.
Going with XFCE or LXDE should be fine. I’d use Netinstall, and add applications you want, not go with default software selection which adds stuff like HPLIP.
I should make sure the /usr and swap partion are close together on the disk to reduce seeking, and keep page faults in the ‘hot’ best served area of the disk.
I should make sure the /usr and swap partion are close together on the disk to reduce seeking, and keep page faults in
the ‘hot’ best served area of the disk.
and how can i make them closer together?
yes i will netinstall i tested it already in vbox and i liked it very much
More RAM- no that isn’t possible the owner don’t want to spend any money on this old pc 