[lug] Linux on older hardware

Bonnell, Doug DBonnell at co.maxoptix.com
Tue Aug 7 13:59:43 MDT 2001


I'm thinking that some people get confused on the difference between
Linux and X Windows. Generally speaking, Linux runs fine on older hardware,
but X Windows and all of it's applications and utilities can be a real
problem.

Older machines have less memory and less hard disk space unless they
have been extensively upgraded. A lot of old machines can't support any
more than 64Mbytes of memory and their BIOS code will not like the very
large, modern hard disks.

I have a copy of Essential Debian that fits Apache and a nice, console
only, interface in about 60Mbytes of disk space. No X, no Gnome, etc.

Certainly, X and one of the simpler window managers will work. The problem
is the major distributions want to load in a gigabyte of X based utilities
that probably aren't needed. Couple that with very old video hardware and
you are asking for disappointment.

Doug



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