peterw
New Member
I keep my old notebooks because they are cheap and small servers. They don't need much power, are silent and have keyboard, mouse and screen included. I use small linux distrubitions to run linux servers on old 256MB RAM notebooks. My IBM ThinkPad T20 with Intel Pentium III 700 MHz, 256MB RAM and DVD is not dying.
I try to cover four different linux distributions. Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, SliTaz and Tiny Core Linux.
Damn Small Linux: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
The goal is to have a linux distribution in a 50MB package. It is based on Debian and it needs only 128MB of RAM.
DSL has a nearly complete desktop, it also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off of a live CD.
The desktop has XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, Netrik web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (Ted), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox and JWM window managers.
A package list offers lots of additional packages. You can install DSL on hard disk too.
Puppy Linux: http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm
The goal is to have a beginner friendly linux desktop in a 100MB package. It needs 256MB of RAM.
It is using JWM to have a Windows XP look.
There are Ubuntu and Slackware binaries available.
And there is a ARM version for RaspberryPi too: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PARM
SliTaz GNU/Linux: http://www.slitaz.org/en/about/
The goal is to have a linux distribution in a 35MB package.
SliTaz GNU/Linux is a free operating system working completely in memory from removable media such as a cdrom or USB key.
It offers a LightTPD with CGI and PHP support, browsers (Midori or Retawq), sound support provided by Alsa mixer, audio player and CD ripper/encoder, chat, mail, FTP clients. SSH client and server powered by Dropbear. It is usung Openbox as a desktop environment.
There are over 3000 packages available to install additional tools.
Tiny Core Linux: http://www.tinycorelinux.net/intro.html
The goal is to have a linux distribution with no extras.
By default, Tiny Core Linux operates like a Internet client. In Default Mode Tiny Core boots entirely into RAM.
Users run the Appbrowser to browse the repository and download applications.
In Mount Mode Applications are stored locally in a directory named tce on a persistent store. Applications are optionally mounted on reboot.
I used Damn Small Linux a lot because it was the first distribution I knew. They offer lots of packages that can be installed. But the last versions of DSL are needing too much RAM. I found Puppy Linux during my search for a EeePC linux distribution, but SliTaz is now my most used linux distribtuin. It can run with 32MB of RAM in text mode.
I installed it on a sd card (frugal installation) and boot from it if I need it. You can use the Tiny SliTaz Builder: http://tiny.slitaz.org/ to create your own version of SliTaz.
I try to cover four different linux distributions. Damn Small Linux, Puppy Linux, SliTaz and Tiny Core Linux.
Damn Small Linux: http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
The goal is to have a linux distribution in a 50MB package. It is based on Debian and it needs only 128MB of RAM.
DSL has a nearly complete desktop, it also has the ability to act as an SSH/FTP/HTTPD server right off of a live CD.
The desktop has XMMS (MP3, CD Music, and MPEG), FTP client, Dillo web browser, Netrik web browser, FireFox, spreadsheet, Sylpheed email, spellcheck (US English), a word-processor (Ted), three editors (Beaver, Vim, and Nano [Pico clone]), graphics editing and viewing (Xpaint, and xzgv), Xpdf (PDF Viewer), emelFM (file manager), Naim (AIM, ICQ, IRC), VNCviwer, Rdesktop, SSH/SCP server and client, DHCP client, PPP, PPPoE (ADSL), a web server, calculator, generic and GhostScript printer support, NFS, Fluxbox and JWM window managers.
A package list offers lots of additional packages. You can install DSL on hard disk too.
Puppy Linux: http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview%20and%20Getting%20Started.htm
The goal is to have a beginner friendly linux desktop in a 100MB package. It needs 256MB of RAM.
It is using JWM to have a Windows XP look.
There are Ubuntu and Slackware binaries available.
And there is a ARM version for RaspberryPi too: http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PARM
SliTaz GNU/Linux: http://www.slitaz.org/en/about/
The goal is to have a linux distribution in a 35MB package.
SliTaz GNU/Linux is a free operating system working completely in memory from removable media such as a cdrom or USB key.
It offers a LightTPD with CGI and PHP support, browsers (Midori or Retawq), sound support provided by Alsa mixer, audio player and CD ripper/encoder, chat, mail, FTP clients. SSH client and server powered by Dropbear. It is usung Openbox as a desktop environment.
There are over 3000 packages available to install additional tools.
Tiny Core Linux: http://www.tinycorelinux.net/intro.html
The goal is to have a linux distribution with no extras.
By default, Tiny Core Linux operates like a Internet client. In Default Mode Tiny Core boots entirely into RAM.
Users run the Appbrowser to browse the repository and download applications.
In Mount Mode Applications are stored locally in a directory named tce on a persistent store. Applications are optionally mounted on reboot.
I used Damn Small Linux a lot because it was the first distribution I knew. They offer lots of packages that can be installed. But the last versions of DSL are needing too much RAM. I found Puppy Linux during my search for a EeePC linux distribution, but SliTaz is now my most used linux distribtuin. It can run with 32MB of RAM in text mode.
I installed it on a sd card (frugal installation) and boot from it if I need it. You can use the Tiny SliTaz Builder: http://tiny.slitaz.org/ to create your own version of SliTaz.
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