Kubuntu + very low end computer

[nappilainen]

Hi!

My parents are plagued by an old IBM computer and Windows 98. The machine/OS-combination is a sequrity nightmare. Here's the spec:

AMD K6-II 300Mhz
64 mb RAM
40GB harddrive (the old IBM drive threw in the towell a coupla' months ago)

My question is:

Can Kubuntu run on such a machine, or could it somehow be accomodated to do it?


Cheers

J from Finland

[Nirvana]

Yes, most certainly, but install and use XFCE instead of KDE for the GUI, it'll be much more quicker and efficient.

[nappilainen]

Thanks for the tip.

At a glance, installing and using xfce doesn't seem to be the most straightforward of tasks. It's for my techologically illiterate folks, remember.

I tried the Ubuntu Live CD today and it didn't work. I got as far as to the "enter pre-loaded session"-part of the installation process, then it simply stated it couldn't enter the preloaded session.

What could this be?

[incinerator]

The live cds need more memory, afaik the minimum limit for running a livecd is 128mb RAM, you could try with less if there's a swap partition on the system already.

Setting up xubuntu should be straightforward, do a "server" install and then fire up dselect/aptitude/apt-get to install xubuntu-desktop.

You can run kde on a machine with 64mb of ram, provided you have a swap partition that's big enough. The experience won't be very great though and second recommending xfce.

[Nirvana]

Setting up xubuntu should be straightforward, do a "server" install and then fire up dselect/aptitude/apt-get to install xubuntu-desktop.

Note, by dselect/aptitude/apt-get he means just do one of the commands, ex: sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop. Just thought I'd clear that up. Also, remember to put sudo in front because you need to be root (super user of linux) in order to install stuff. (it is a security thing). The password for sudo is your username password. Read more on sudo here: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/RootSudo



You can run kde on a machine with 64mb of ram, provided you have a swap partition that's big enough. The experience won't be very great though and second recommending xfce.

For swap, since you have a 40GB hard drive, try 1GB for swap. This should make up for your lack of RAM (but note that swap is a bit slower than RAM). You can add more if you like, but that should be enough.

Also, for a server install (which is what you want to do, trust me) you have to load up the CD, and at the menu, instead of just pressing enter, you must type server and press enter. Then, it will install, and after, when you login (it will be all command line by the way, but you are about to change that) you will need to do the sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop command, which will gather all dependancies (there should be quite a bit), install, and you will have a GUI!

[RenegadeAbe]

We have almost the same type of computer specs on some of my machines I administer:
MMX 350Mhz
128Mbs Ram
4.5 Gb HD (not 45 but 4 point 5)

Entire boot up takes about 4 minutes more or less.
(from pressing the ON switch to actually being logged on to KDE)

if your parents are going to use the machine for browsing the net and email its ok but if you want to use an Office Suite like OpenOffice, I suggest you buy ram.

[nappilainen]

Okay, I'm poking around my city and the internet for cheap RAM.

Meanwhile: Could somebody walk me through the steps I should take in order to run a Kubuntu Live CD on this system (let's assume I don't buy more RAM for the time being)? Should I create a swap partition? With, say, Partition Magic?
I'm really not comfortable with the idea of doing a "real" install of Kubuntu on the machine before my parents have had a chance to try it out.

[Open Source]

You may want to use partition magic to create a 10-20 gig partition and 1 gig or less swap space. Then fully install kubuntu and not use the live version. That way windows is still on there, and so is kubuntu. That is if you already have partition magic, 40 gigs and a relatively empty hard drive.

[nappilainen]

Okay, but in that case, what would be the best way to handle the dualboot? On my XP machine I installed a copy of Fedora and used the Microsoft Boot manager somehow, but I can't remember how I did it...

[kubicle]

If you wish to use the windows boot manager, you can use a utility called 'bootpart' http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm.

I'd still recommend using grub (less hassle).

Always wise to create boot disks beforehand, even if only to ensure everything goes well (usually things go horribly wrong only when you haven't prepared ;) )

[nappilainen]

Thanks for all the help!

It got as far as installing PowerQuest Partitionmagic 8 on the IBM Aptiva. But when I launched the application it didn't "find" any available space on the drive, although Win98 said (and common sense confirms) that I should have at least 20GB.

What is the problem? How can I rectify it? Is there any other way of non-destructively resize the partition?

[drw766]

it didn't "find" any available space on the drive, although Win98 said (and common sense confirms) that I should have at least 20GB.

What is the problem? How can I rectify it? Is there any other way of non-destructively resize the partition?

That just means your current partition occupies the entire drive. You have to resize the partition to create available space. Resizing a 40G partition to 30G would leave you with 10G available space.

[nappilainen]

it didn't "find" any available space on the drive, although Win98 said (and common sense confirms) that I should have at least 20GB.

What is the problem? How can I rectify it? Is there any other way of non-destructively resize the partition?

That just means your current partition occupies the entire drive. You have to resize the partition to create available space. Resizing a 40G partition to 30G would leave you with 10G available space.


Okay, sorry, I was being unclear. I understand that my one partition occupies the whole harddrive, the problem is partition magic won't resize a partition to less than the used space. Hence I couldn't resize the partition because PM thought all space was being used. A reboot made PartM see the unused space. Okay. Then I got all kinds of weird error-messages.
My saviour was booting the DOS-version of PM. Aaaaaah! Good ole' reliable DOS. Being a bit spoilt by bash om my PowerBook DOS does seems awfully crude... ;)
Whatever.

My next question.

Is it safe to place the linux-partitions _after_ the windows partitions? PM says something about the first 1024 whatevers and warns that the partition may not be bootable... ?

[Nirvana]

shouldn't matter. What I tested out was Windows first, then an extended partition, and in the extended partition, a linux partition and a swap partition. I had everything working, GRUB loaded everything fine, I was able to go into Kubuntu, no problems.

[toad]

Don't worry about the partition magic warning since it relates to boot magic parameters. But since you are going to be using Grub, it doesn't matter where on the hard drive the partition is, it will always be bootable (Grub is simply superior...).

HTH

Ingo

[nappilainen]

One more thing:

Is there anything special I need to do in order to run open office with xfce?

[toad]

not in case of my toshiba. You simply click, make yourself a cup of tea, have a wash and prepare lunch and it should be up by afternoon ;D

[nappilainen]

hmm... the installation got as far as to reading the harddrive in preparation for the partitioning-part of the installation. The reading took forever so I went out for lunch. I got back to a empty blue screen with a small white line at the bottom. Nothing seemed to be happening. I tried writing something and the text appeared in the white line. I tried some random commands. Nothing. Not even "invalid command" or something similar.

What to do?

Should I reboot?

Shouls I just have a cup of tea and hope for the best?