Linux Challenge - OLD laptop, which distro?
April 6th 2010 13:31
Here was the challenge I faced: I picked up a laptop for $25 at a yard sale, thinking I'd get it going for my 8-year-old daughter, just to play Webkinz, email friends, simple flash games, etc.
It ran, which was good. It was made by a no-name company, "Great Quality." Never heard of it. Bad. On the surface, things looked good. It booted up a really buggy XP, so there weren't internal problems. It had a 1.2 GHz CPU, 40 GB hard drive, 256 MB RAM, and no wireless card, but I had a no-name dongle to go with the no-name laptop, so I thought I'd be okay. But it an XGA LCD screen, too. That XGA LCD screen caused problems. All sorts of distros that I wanted to try, like Masonux and Slax, would seem fine until I clicked "Default" on the Boot screen, and then everything would go black. I went through 20 different distros trying to find one that would work, Puppy, DSL, Deli, Mepis, PCLinuxOS, PC/OS (love that one), none of them would give me everything I needed. Puppy, Lubuntu, & DSL booted fine, but they wouldn't use the USB dongle. Xubuntu seemed like the answer, until I ran the updates. Then it went to black screen, too. The others wouldn't even show up, although I could hear the CD's purring away.
Finally, I pulled out Dream Linux, just to see, and it worked like a dream. It booted off the CD well, picked up the dongle immediately, and I didn't even have to install flash. It was already installed. Spooky. Wow. I installed it quickly, to my daughter's delight. After watching me struggle with that laptop for two days, she was skeptical. But it's still working, and I have no plans to replace that distro any time soon.
I'm still looking for another $25 laptop for another daughter. This time I might start with Dream Linux.
It ran, which was good. It was made by a no-name company, "Great Quality." Never heard of it. Bad. On the surface, things looked good. It booted up a really buggy XP, so there weren't internal problems. It had a 1.2 GHz CPU, 40 GB hard drive, 256 MB RAM, and no wireless card, but I had a no-name dongle to go with the no-name laptop, so I thought I'd be okay. But it an XGA LCD screen, too. That XGA LCD screen caused problems. All sorts of distros that I wanted to try, like Masonux and Slax, would seem fine until I clicked "Default" on the Boot screen, and then everything would go black. I went through 20 different distros trying to find one that would work, Puppy, DSL, Deli, Mepis, PCLinuxOS, PC/OS (love that one), none of them would give me everything I needed. Puppy, Lubuntu, & DSL booted fine, but they wouldn't use the USB dongle. Xubuntu seemed like the answer, until I ran the updates. Then it went to black screen, too. The others wouldn't even show up, although I could hear the CD's purring away.
Finally, I pulled out Dream Linux, just to see, and it worked like a dream. It booted off the CD well, picked up the dongle immediately, and I didn't even have to install flash. It was already installed. Spooky. Wow. I installed it quickly, to my daughter's delight. After watching me struggle with that laptop for two days, she was skeptical. But it's still working, and I have no plans to replace that distro any time soon.
I'm still looking for another $25 laptop for another daughter. This time I might start with Dream Linux.
| 122 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
