UBuntu on older machines ?

[Vincent Trouilliez]

> I run a pII, 266mhz 

That doesn't count ! ;o) P2 !!  We were talking first generation
Pentiums...

Anyway, I spent the day installing stuff on my old 200MMX board.

Ubuntu/Gnome worked but was too slow to be of real use for a desktop.
So I installed Xfce4 from Synaptic. It improved things a fair bit, but
that was still a bit of a pain, not responsive enough.
So I asked my friend, a Mandrake fan, to pass me the oldest version he
had. He gave me Mandrake 7.2.... released mid 2001 with Gnome 1.2 !
Looked very ugly indeed, and was still fairly slow.
Okay, I bought the computer/board in early 1998, so even Mandrake 7.2 is
still 3 years younger than the board, so what did I expect.

I guess even the slowest computer running the oldest/first Unix system
was still way more powerful than my 200MMX board, Unix was hardly
designed with Desktop use in the first place... I guess it's just good
luck that todays computers are exceedingly powerful and are now able to
run Unix stuff comfortably.

So, since I will use this board mainly as a file server/back-up
facility, I guess there is no point downgrading the OS 'til I get a fast
desktop, because I don't really need a desktop in the first place.
So best to let Ubuntu on it, so as to have uptodate server/networking
tools, and benefit from the community support, and work on the command
line. I guess/hope that there are decent command line tools, with a
decent text user interface, to set up server/networking things. And if
not, well, I will bear with Gnome or xfce4, as I will only have to
configure things once then leave it alone, so it's not the end of the
world.

I will put my board in a corner again (my friend lent me a spare
case/power supply but I must give it back tomorrow), and dig it out
again sometime next year, once I can afford all the extra hardware
needed. I am really skint recently.

Vince.