LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

All questions and problems regarding the installation and upgrades of LXDE from USB Stick, Live CD or Web.
edward
Posts: 146
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:01 pm
Location: Boston

LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by edward »

I noticed on the About LXDE page that it has been tested on a 266 MHz Pentium II system.

I thought you would all like to know that I have LXDE running with (currently) Mandriva Linux 2009 Cooker (release candidate) on an 11-year old Pentium/MMX 166 MHz (Pentium 1) system with 256 Mb of PC100 memory. It contains a 5400 RPM hard drive.

Once logged in, the LXDE desktop comes up very fast on this system. But obviously due to the slower CPU, some applications would understandably run slower. I sometimes call this my test system, because if something will run on this, it ought to run on almost anything. :D
Debian Sid - LXDE
firmit
Posts: 32
Joined: Mon Sep 15, 2008 7:08 pm

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by firmit »

Cool! Very cool!
NoEffex
Posts: 1
Joined: Mon Oct 20, 2008 5:49 am

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by NoEffex »

With that being said, it could theoretically happen that in the near future LXDE were to attain more proggy's, that it would universally be faster :). My vouch is for LXDE.
edward
Posts: 146
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by edward »

I removed the Cooker installation and it is now running Mandriva 2009.0 (Official). LXDE is still running great on it, without any problems to report. :)
Debian Sid - LXDE
archibald haddock
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:57 pm

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by archibald haddock »

I am running it on a 300 MHz PentiumMMX (i586, but chost i486 for my laptop) with 64MB and Gentoo on it and LXDE runs quite well.
I am thinking about installing it on my other PCs.
edward
Posts: 146
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by edward »

If it runs well on your MMX/300, even with 64 Mb memory, I would definitely consider it for the other PC's.

Because GNOME runs rather slow on the MMX/166, I have LXDE set as the default desktop at login on that.
Debian Sid - LXDE
archibald haddock
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:57 pm

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by archibald haddock »

Installed it and merged it with xfce. Runs clearly faster than Xfce. LXFE. :D
edward
Posts: 146
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by edward »

For lightweight (and/or slow) systems, I think LXDE is the perfect desktop environment for such systems.

Although this has nothing directly to do with LXDE, on the MMX/166, I added the nopinit kernel parameter which turns off parallel initialization when the system is booting up. It takes the MMX slightly longer to boot up (and faster to shut down - which was a surprise), but it appears to be less taxing on the CPU as it boots up, given its speed.
Debian Sid - LXDE
archibald haddock
Posts: 148
Joined: Sun Jan 11, 2009 6:57 pm

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by archibald haddock »

Do you mean internal kernel init or than the runlevels (openrc ...)? I just can say, to parallel rcs with gentoo is total crap, cause all are waiting for everyone and there checks are keeping the dependecies form coming up, so more checks...
edward
Posts: 146
Joined: Mon Sep 22, 2008 11:01 pm
Location: Boston

Re: LXDE running on 11-year old Pentium 1 system 166 MHz

Post by edward »

When I looked at the console messages, there were two messages for each item that loaded in when using nopinit. I have read that by using it, it can also help to diagnose where a problem exists when booting up, by displaying those extra messages.

As far as I know, it is only for the kernel init and does not affect any of the runlevels.
Debian Sid - LXDE
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