To all those saying I need to get a new hard drive, I do realize that 8GB is not enough space, but the whole point of this is just experimentation...that computer was lying around collecting dust so I wanted to see which one is the simplest OS out there that uses minimal resources. Like what I see so far about puppy linux...definitely going to give it a try.
Which OS would you choose?
- Thread starter ahamza
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lhamil64
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If you really want to put on a minimalist Linux distro, you can use Arch linux and just install the essentials, but it's FAR from user friendly (it basically starts you with a complete bare-bones Linux environment with just a terminal and you have to install and configure everything).
It's primary purpose is to cruise the internet. Hence it's name netbook.
It's basicly a toy laptop. The OS that was on there was a stripped down version. Fillet of the fat to fit the tiny hard drive, ram, and low power cpu.
Don't expect to play doom3 on it no matter what OS you use.
Seriously though I use Knoppix 5 for my non windows playing around. Simple and easy for folks like me.
It's basicly a toy laptop. The OS that was on there was a stripped down version. Fillet of the fat to fit the tiny hard drive, ram, and low power cpu.
Don't expect to play doom3 on it no matter what OS you use.
Seriously though I use Knoppix 5 for my non windows playing around. Simple and easy for folks like me.
if you install windows, the first thing you're going to want to do it turn off (or at least shrink the page file, this will give you a little more disk space. (~1GB)
then you want to tell it to never be able to hibernate, since the hiber.sys file will take 1GB of space.
you also want to go through the options when installing windows and tell it to not install pretty much everything, don't play solitaire? then why install it.
not disabled? then why install accessibility tools like screen magnifier
never use word pad then tell it to not be available. and so on until you've trimmed just about everything out of the system.
without a lot of the system components you'll also find that that the updates that you apply will be lessened too. (but try slipstreaming your OS to include most patches etc so that there is less need to patch anyway).
since you'll have crippled the system by turning off or reducing the page file, then you'll want to turn off as many services as possible, whilst still letting the notebook actually run.
then you'll have a not too shabby system for playing about online with.
the other route is just just use a reduced linux distribution. -but if you've never used linux this may have a bit of learning attached to it.
Damn small linux is very good, but getting rather old now.
then you want to tell it to never be able to hibernate, since the hiber.sys file will take 1GB of space.
you also want to go through the options when installing windows and tell it to not install pretty much everything, don't play solitaire? then why install it.
not disabled? then why install accessibility tools like screen magnifier
never use word pad then tell it to not be available. and so on until you've trimmed just about everything out of the system.
without a lot of the system components you'll also find that that the updates that you apply will be lessened too. (but try slipstreaming your OS to include most patches etc so that there is less need to patch anyway).
since you'll have crippled the system by turning off or reducing the page file, then you'll want to turn off as many services as possible, whilst still letting the notebook actually run.
then you'll have a not too shabby system for playing about online with.
the other route is just just use a reduced linux distribution. -but if you've never used linux this may have a bit of learning attached to it.
Damn small linux is very good, but getting rather old now.
So during the duration of this post I tested Ubuntu 12.10, Lubuntu, Xubuntu, Precise Puppy and Joli OS. So thanks to all great suggestion most of my trials came from here. The final choice for me was down to Lubuntu and Xubuntu and I saw that the space usage was almost the same for both. Have finally settled down for Xubuntu. Machine is running nice and smooth, still have about 4Gigs of space left on the hard drive which is not nearly what I will need if I use the machine for its "primary purpose" appropriately stated by setishock 
.
But anyways, thanks for the helpful suggestions everyone. I am new to computerforums.org but warming up to it pretty quickly.
.But anyways, thanks for the helpful suggestions everyone. I am new to computerforums.org but warming up to it pretty quickly.
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