Sign in with
Sign up | Sign in
Your question

Need Linux distro for old equipment

Tags:
  • Distribution
Last response: in Linux/Free BSD
Share
July 26, 2014 7:44:30 AM

So here is the deal, I want to run a low end barely usable machine as a file server, print server, and hopefully allow it to play videos on a TV. I want the easiest to use distribution capable of doing these things with the minimum effort - I work a lot and don't want to fuss with the OS and I have not really done much with Linux (especially with the terminal commands) for most of the past 5 years. Here are the computer's specs...

4x512 mb DDR 333 RAM (2gb total, only reads a little over 1.5 gb for some reason and all 4 slots read)
AMD Athlon 64 2.0ghz socket 939 CPU (I cant remember if it is a 3200+ or 3500+)
Stock cooling
80gb SATA hard drive (going to be upgrading with a 1-3 TB hard drive when I have the funds)
DVD-/+RW
nVidia GT 210 1gb x16 PCI-express video card with HDMI/DVI/VGA outputs
integrated sound
350 watt power supply

I may put in a TV Tuner card from an old machine, the tuner is analog however. It would run on a PCI slot.

I realize 80gb is not much for a file server or media machine, it is going to be upgraded as soon as I have the funds - but I want to get everything ready and downloaded... The machine is not intended as a new high end high performance machine, its primary purpose is a print server and file storage - the video is purely an extra not required but desired.

More about : linux distro equipment

July 26, 2014 9:11:02 AM

Probably Lubuntu (lxde) or Xubuntu (xfce) will fit your needs. or maybe crunchbang (openbox).

Honestly you have enough ram and discrete graphics card to run most desktop environment with out hassle
m
0
l
July 26, 2014 11:42:41 AM

What is crunchbang based on? I have used debian/ubuntu/red hat/fedora/mandrake (mandriva)/SuSE.
m
0
l
Related resources
July 26, 2014 3:12:35 PM

http://crunchbang.org/about/

Quote:
CrunchBang is a Debian GNU/Linux based distribution offering a great blend of speed, style and substance. Using the nimble Openbox window manager, it is highly customisable and provides a modern, full-featured GNU/Linux system without sacrificing performance.
m
0
l
July 26, 2014 3:26:01 PM

BTW the GT210 supports hardware decoding (VDPAU) of H.264, VC-1, WMV, DivX, MPEG-2 and MPEG-4. So it can playback HD video with even a slow CPU.
m
0
l
July 26, 2014 5:38:41 PM

Thank you. I am looking into it now, I was trying to put Ubuntu 13 on it, but it is sooo slow with it. I did buy a 1 gb stick of RAM (will bump it to 2.5 gb total) for $0.35... I am going to check out crunchbang and see if I can find a live cd so I can see if it runs on the machine faster than ubuntu 13. I may also look into lubuntu. I will see if either works decent and then consider this closed if it does, if not then I will keep this open while looking for other options.
m
0
l
July 27, 2014 7:06:42 PM

I was able to get Lubuntu to install on it, Ubuntu would not even install - kept crashing during the install process. I have not had a chance to actually do anything yet to see how it performs, but I will also be running the live cd for crunchbang to test it out as well. I went with Lubuntu first only because I have used Ubuntu and wanted to see if it would install since it needed less system resources to run.
m
0
l
July 28, 2014 2:36:51 AM

If lubuntu installed Ubuntu should have as well. Ubuntu seems slow to you because the default desktop, Unity, is rather heavy. Switch to a different desktop, like cinnamon, or others suggested above will give you all the functionality of ubuntu with better speed.
m
0
l
July 29, 2014 1:06:38 PM

LXLE runs well on older hardware. It's essentially Lubuntu with a few extras. I use it on my LAN minecraft server (Pentium D 940, 2gb ram, 16gb ssd, radeon x600) and it runs surprisingly fast.

Other distos that would likely work well would be Debian, Crunchbang, Puppy (I like Mac Pup personally), Knopix, or something like that ... Bodhi ran good for me too on old hardware.
m
0
l
July 31, 2014 3:47:18 PM

Used Lubuntu 13.10 running from 8GB SDHC card on old Asus Eee 901 with 1GB RAM and the old Atom CPU and it worked really well - in fact it was much quicker than the installed Windows XP SP3. So I also recommend Lubuntu.
m
0
l
!