|
 OJK
Stranger
Registered: 06/08/03
Posts: 10,629
|
 Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? 
#5290859 - 02/12/06 06:36 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Hey everyone,
sorry for another "help me install linux" thread, but I'd appreciate some recommendations from experienced users.
I have an old Thinkpad 600E that I would like to install linux on. I would like to gain some general familiarity with linux, and I can't afford the hard drive space of dual-booting my main computer (it would involve resizing partitions and other such nonsense that I don't want to go through).
Furthermore; a friend of mine recently purchased a Mac powerbook for about ?1400 (approx $2600), chiefly because it "doesn't get viruses" (his words, not mine) and the OS skin is novel and flashy. In an attempt to convince him to return such a self-indulgent extravagence (he is, like me, a student, and, like me, in debt) I'm trying to demonstrate him the security, ease-of-use and attractiveness of a Unix-like operating system installed on a stock laptop.
So; I want to get a general familiarity with linux, and show my friend a functional laptop that has an attractive-looking operating system, so he might be convinced to get one of his own. However, my experience of linux is limited to small amounts of use of Knoppix live cds for system recovery, and various articles on linux fundamentals. I'm familiar with general concepts such as having to mount drives before they can be used, everything being treated as a file, and having to log in as root before writing files outside of your user directory (I think that's right?), but in terms of acutal experience, I'm hopeless.
I was thinking of opting for Ubuntu - it seems to be the linux of choice for n00bs, and seems to have good hardware support. However, will it run on my thinkpad? It only has a mobile Pentium II running at 324MHz, and 192 mB RAM.
Also, I don't think linux supports the Thinkpad 600E's Crystal SoundFusion onboard sound properly. Based on reading this and this , I think I have to load custom scripts, such as this to get the sound to work properly. However, I have no idea what running such scripts entails. I've tried to do as much research as possible, but my lack of linux experience means many of the answers I find just confuse me 
Another question I have is which desktop should I run? I want to run the "flashiest" desktop I can, but I don't know how smoothly things like partial transparency will run on such an antiquated machine. I think my thinkpad has a "NeoMagic MagicMedia256AV video chipset with 2.5MB of SGRAM", which of course is just terrible - can linux magically make my latop output a nice shiny desktop display?
From what I've been reading, KDE is flashier than GNOME, but I'm not sure either will run well on my machine. I was reading about a desktop called "Enlightenment" than apparently runs on quite low system resources - I did a google image search and found some nice-looking Enlightenment desktops, but does it really look good? Does it have things like transparency?
Also, how much space does an average Ubuntu install, plus standard programs (e.g. Open Office, VLC, Firefox, some kind of linux media player, etc) take up? My laptop hard drive is only 9.3GB, and I can't afford to buy a bigger one. I was even hoping to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows 2000 - might I have enough space? Also, is it easy to set up partioning during a Ubuntu install?
Anyway, sorry for the long post. Any advice you guys have to give would be great. I'm fairly computer-savvy when it comes to windows boxes, but I am a total and complete linux n00b. I'd really appreciate the help, and I hope to record my transition to linux in a log-type-dealio, to maybe help other windows users who fancy a linux laptop.
Cheers 
|
blink
eye of horus
Registered: 03/31/02
Posts: 11,349
Loc: Geographic Location (Stat...
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? *DELETED* [Re: OJK]
#5290922 - 02/12/06 08:03 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Post deleted by blinkidiotReason for deletion: Im sorry
--------------------
|
OJK
Stranger
Registered: 06/08/03
Posts: 10,629
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: blink]
#5290933 - 02/12/06 08:11 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
Any system reference will require you to read it at least three times before you get a reasonable picture of what to do.
haha, so true!
thanks for the link, I'll get reading 
|
OJK
Stranger
Registered: 06/08/03
Posts: 10,629
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: blink]
#5294034 - 02/13/06 08:42 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Can anyone recommend which desktop I should use?
I'm just about to download Ubuntu - do you think I should go for Ubuntu or Kubuntu?
If I just install Ubuntu, can I set it up with KDE fairly easily? Will Ubuntu set up with KDE be essentially identical to Kubuntu, or are there other differences?
|
Krishna
कृष्ण,LOL
Registered: 05/08/03
Posts: 23,285
Loc: oakland
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: OJK]
#5294158 - 02/13/06 09:47 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
ubuntu will run gnome stock, but allow you to install kde (i think you can apt-get install kubuntu-desktop or something like that to install kde over gnome). i prefer gnome as it has a lot less bells and whistles than kde, but if you are more used to a m$ environment, kde might seem more familiar.
--------------------
|
OJK
Stranger
Registered: 06/08/03
Posts: 10,629
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: Krishna]
#5294262 - 02/13/06 10:29 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Can you use Enlightenment with ubuntu?
Does Enlightenment use less resources than KDE or GNOME?
|
Vvellum
Stranger
Registered: 05/24/04
Posts: 10,920
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: OJK]
#5294339 - 02/13/06 11:06 AM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
Quote:
I was thinking of opting for Ubuntu - it seems to be the linux of choice for n00bs, and seems to have good hardware support. However, will it run on my thinkpad? It only has a mobile Pentium II running at 324MHz, and 192 mB RAM.
ubuntu should be okay, but to be safe I recommend ubuntu lite
Quote:
Also, how much space does an average Ubuntu install, plus standard programs (e.g. Open Office, VLC, Firefox, some kind of linux media player, etc) take up? My laptop hard drive is only 9.3GB, and I can't afford to buy a bigger one. I was even hoping to dual boot Ubuntu with Windows 2000 - might I have enough space? Also, is it easy to set up partioning during a Ubuntu install?
I think a full ubuntu install is (if I remember correctly) about 3 gigs, but again, you should check out ubuntu lite or one of the other lite distros like puppy or damnsmall linux.
also visit: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportMachinesLaptopsIBM - looks like you'll have to configure alsa to get your soundcard running. should be a problem though - just ask the people over at the ubuntu forums.
|
 wilshire
free radical
Registered: 05/11/05
Posts: 2,421
Loc: SE PA
Last seen: 14 years, 2 months
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: OJK]
#5296440 - 02/13/06 07:05 PM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
a $2600 powerbook is probably going to beat an obsolete pentium II system in the graphics department no matter what they're running...
9.3 GB of hard drive space is enough room to install pretty much any linux system out there (i usually do system installs on 7 or 8 gig partitions and they never fill up). i don't know how well the more full featured ones will run on it though.
try installing ubuntu and see if it can handle gnome. if it can handle gnome, you've got something you can make pretty flashy. KDE is cheesy (an opinion) and heavier on resources (a fact). if it can't, the next thing to do is probably to install fluxbox and work on it until it looks nice... but you're never going to make a fluxbox system that more than a handful of people think looks nicer than aqua.
go for ubuntu. it'll probably work, and if it runs with gnome alright, you're all set. you might also want to try xfce. it's a desktop environment that has some similarities to gnome, but is quite a bit lighter. i think there's an 'xubuntu' out there that uses it as the default desktop. you can install an xfce environment from a regular ubuntu system with 'sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop'.
i know little about enlightenment. from the little i do know, i'd say it might be that gentoo + enlightenment is the best way to do this, gentoo being tailored for your system and enlightenment having a good eye-candy:resource-footprint ratio, but i've never actually used either of these.
Edited by wilshire (02/13/06 08:53 PM)
|
debianlinux
Myconerd - DBK
Registered: 12/09/02
Posts: 8,334
Loc: Over There
Last seen: 9 months, 17 days
|
Re: Installing linux on a Thinkpad 600E - recommendations? [Re: OJK]
#5296814 - 02/13/06 08:30 PM (18 years, 2 months ago) |
|
|
i have installed both Gentoo stage1 and Vector Linux on a thinkpad 380D which is a paltry P90 40Mb RAM. Basic functions such as browsing and email and word processing were acceptably responsive on both systems with the minimal Gentoo install holding the edge in overall snappiness. i would expect similar installs on your specs to offer indistinguishable results betwixt the distros with Gentoo offering a far more extendable library.
|
|
Threaded
Previous
Index
Next
Shop: Buy Bali Kratom Powder, Maeng Da Thai Kratom Leaf Powder
Edit 
Reply 
1 2 all )
automan
nihilistism
shymanta
Asante
drtyfrnk
Aiko Aiko