Yeah, so I'm setting up an old P2-400 I had collecting dust in my closet, and I figured instead of going back to Win98 that I'd put my new knowledge of Linux to use. Except that I've only really used KDE and Gnome as desktop environments and I know that it would be impossible to run them on such a machine (unless I ran old versions?)

Specs:
P2-400
192 mb SDRAM
24x CD-ROM
4 GB hard disk
10/100 ethernet
SoundBlaster AWE64 ISA
2 mb PCI 2D video

Distro will probably be SuSE or Gentoo (if I have the patience).

So, any ideas?

Also, I'd have put this in the tech forum, but I'm not looking for tech support, but more of a "post your favourite lightweight WM"

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When guitars are outlawed, only outlaws will have guitars.

XFCE and IceWM are apparently pretty good, although I haven't used either. I tend to use the default WM for Suse 9.0 (imaginatively titled: windowmaker) instead of KDE and I like it.

Go for Debain. Itll be faster, and youll have the advantage of the APT package manager.


As for you question...

FVWM - fast, lightweight, no-frills window manager.

Fluxbox - not quite as lightweight, but has more features.


..And, of course, TWM, which comes bundled with X...

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Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.
:wq

[This message has been edited by GBK (edited July 12, 2004).]

Don't use Gentoo on that poor Pentium 2... it will take days to compile things. I think your best choice here is Debian, because as GBK said, it has excellent package management... which is what matters most on a Linux box. I wouldn't use SUSE either, as I hear it is slow. You actually might want to consider Slackware. Package management is much more rudimentary, but Slackware is much easier to install and is more straightforward than Debian. (The Debian install scrips make me sick just thinking about it)

As far as your lightweight WM goes, I vote XFCE4 all the way. It strikes the perfect balance between simplicity and eye candy, in addition to being fast. I use it on my desktop in conjunction with gdesklets. If you are looking for something you can customize, I would suggest FVWM, although it is rather difficult and time consuming to get it looking good.

Send me a message through aim @ mystic0 mass if you want to talk....

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Please send me e-mail...

[This message has been edited by Mystic0 (edited July 12, 2004).]

I was only going to go with SuSE because I've been meaning to try it. I'm already familiar with installing Gentoo and Debian, so the install procedure isn't really an issue. And Slackware, well, is Slackware. I don't care that much for it. And I don't know why.

I know compiling in Gentoo would be a pain on a P2, so I figured I take a look at the portage tree to see if there are any packages optimised for old P2s (probably aren't any) before deciding on a distro. Since everyone is telling me that SuSE is slow (why is GBK so adamant about it then?), I might just go back to Debian.

And so far, XFCE4 looks the best to me, although I must say that they all look good. Is there much difference in performance between all of these WM's?

Oh, and thanks to everyone who responded so far

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When guitars are outlawed, only outlaws will have guitars.

BTW; what do you plan to use it for? Server?



Suse is a slicked-up desktop distro for 686s. I use it on my main workstations at home and work, but only because Im lazy. It wouldnt work on a system that old.


Debian, on the other hand, will run like a bat outa hell.

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Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow, and did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.
:wq

GBK: I'll be using it for web-browsing and MP3 playing basically. I'm thinking about using it for hosting my website, but I'll see if it can handle it first. My website barely generates enough traffic to justify paying for it, and my hosting service really sucks. Cool Matty had talked about free-hosting some Massassi members a while ago, but I don't have my hopes set up too high for that seeing he was talking about setting it up for the beginning of summer and I haven't heard anything about it yet.



Alright then, Debian it is

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When guitars are outlawed, only outlaws will have guitars.