Mint 13 or other distro on 320mb of RAM?

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Bryan88
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Mint 13 or other distro on 320mb of RAM?

Post by Bryan88 »

I have just installed LM 13 Maya 32bit xfce on an old laptop, and while it's working fine I have had a couple of freezes and it's a bit slow. It is a really old laptop with only about 320mb of ram so I am not expecting miracles. Would like some opinions/thoughts.
Firstly, is lxde (hope thats right) still a viable desktop enviroment for LM13? I have tried it on my pc when it had LM15 on it and was quite happy with it.
Secondly, I found this page. https://sites.google.com/site/easylinux ... -mint-xfce .
- Is there anything I shoud seriously avoid doing on it.
Many thanks.

Edit - I did install the updates after I installed it and the update manager shows the system being up to date.
Last edited by LockBot on Wed Dec 28, 2022 7:16 am, edited 1 time in total.
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xenopeek
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Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by xenopeek »

You can install LXDE if you want. It's not going to make much of a difference I think; you'll still have full-featured, and thus more heavy, applications installed as default. You'll have to swap out a lot of applications with lightweight alternatives to make it run smooth with 320 MB RAM (e.g., forget about LibreOffice or Firefox). Perhaps picking a distro suitable for RAM-limited computers is a better approach. Something like SliTaz or Tiny Core.
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Pierre
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Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by Pierre »

have a look at anti-X
http://antix.mepis.org

antiX is a fast, lightweight and easy to install linux live CD distribution based on Debian Testing for Intel-AMD x86 compatible systems.
and thus has a environment suitable for old computers.

- your 320Mb is above the 128Mb minimum that is required by anti-X
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Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by Mute Ant »

The kernel has a zram module that can create a zipped-swap device to make better use of the RAM you do have. From my dimm memory of Mint13, the Live-Session enables it, but the installed system doesn't. You can try it out in any installed Mint like this...

Code: Select all

sudo su -c "modprobe zram && echo 320000000 > /sys/block/zram0/disksize && mkswap /dev/zram0 && swapon -p 101 /dev/zram0"
You only need to run this once per boot (it will stop with a 'busy' error if you run it again). The 320000000 [320MB] is the maximum virtual disk size. The zram module is smart enough not to reserve physical memory until it is asked to store something, and only as much as necessary to store it zipped. So all Mint's inactive clutter gets zipped roughly half-sized into RAM-swap.

If you want to, you switch it off again like this..

Code: Select all

sudo su -c "swapoff /dev/zram0 && modprobe -r zram"
...forcing the RAM-swapped data to be discarded or moved into disk-swap.

You might like to take CrunchBang Waldorf for a drive. Based on Debian Stable, an install is 2GB of disk space and 90MB of RAM just ticking over.
Bryan88
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Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by Bryan88 »

Thanks guys. Busy downloading antix, may give it a run. Had a look at Waldorf but it seems a little complicated, I'm not very tech savvy.
Bryan88
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Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by Bryan88 »

The antix is ready to be installed, a few questions about installing it. Can/should I try a dual boot? I have done this successfully with a XP and Linux, just want to know if 2 Linux systems will play nicely together? Or what about Virtualbox? I have never used it before, but think the LM13 comes with it. Although a bit slow, the LM13 is working so I would like to keep a working system available if the antix doesn't work out. Thanks again.
Mute Ant

Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by Mute Ant »

Antix and Mint have to be on different partitions [doh] but the swap partition can be common. Mint and Antix are both Debian underneath...possibly Antix uses the Debian installer...you will need to read the dialogs carefully.
[16GB][16GB][SWAP][DATA]
...would be my choice. The DATA stays safe at the end of the drive while you play in sda1 or sda2.
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MartyMint
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Re: Mint 13 questions

Post by MartyMint »

Bryan88 wrote:Or what about Virtualbox?
On that machine?

NO.
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