Lightweight netbook distros

[Liam Proven]

On 7 January 2012 17:36, Billie Walsh <bilwalsh at swbell.net> wrote:
> On 01/07/2012 10:27 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas, folks!
>>
>> I've had a look at Lubuntu 11.10's netbook interface under VMware. (I
>> am actually running it on a few older, low-spec machines already.)
>>
>> It's definitely an option.
>>
>> I also tried Meego 1.2 and ChromiumOS under VMware. (I used the free
>> version of ChromeOS from Hexxeh: http://chromeos.hexxeh.net/ )
>>
>> Neither installed correctly or would start up. :¬(
>>
>> Lubuntu is quite snappy but I couldn't find a download for the alpha
>> of 12.04 - I don't know if it even exists yet.
>>
>> I have discovered that from a local shop that sells 2nd hand PC kit, I
>> should be able to stick another 512MB of RAM in my netbook for £5. I
>> think I'll try that first and see if Precise Pangolin is usable in 1GB
>> and if so, I'll stay with that. If not, Lubuntu it is.
>>
>
> I have an Asus EeePC. Atom processor. I upgraded the ram to 2Gigs and put in
> a 64 gig SSD. I originally had Ebuntu installed and liked it very much. I
> waited and waited for Aurora to be released but finally had to give up. I
> installed full Kubuntu and have been happy with it. It still boots quick and
> applications load and run just fine. How much of that is due to the SSD
> instead of a mechanical hard drive is hard to say. It seems like it is
> faster than my machines with regular hard drives.
>
> Having said all that I don't use it for any heavy lifting. For me it's use
> is mostly if I go to a library for genealogy research, reading e-books and
> other light duty use. I have a full size laptop and desktops to do the heavy
> lifting.
>
> If you have the drive space and memory why not just go with a full OS.

Well, I don't, that's the thing. It has an 8GB SSD and 512MB of RAM.

However, I found a 512MB SO-DIMM for £5 in a local shop. (US$7.70).
Fitting was a half an hour of very fiddly work - the motherboard must
be completely removed - but a price like that was too good to ignore.

Now it runs the alpha of Precise (12.04) quite well. It's not quick,
but it's usable. And there is over 3GB of free disk space. That's
about as good as it's going to get, I think.

-- 
Liam Proven • Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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