VectorLinux Light vs. Zenwalk: Benchmarks [updated version 29 Sep 09]

Have you heard the news? There will be another Ubuntu derivative, this time based on LXDE and hence called Lubuntu. LXDE is a lightweight desktop environment, and this added to the generally high profile of *ubuntu distributions might make for an interesting lightweight distro indeed, and perhaps fresh competition to VectorLinux.

So I wandered over to the LXDE blog post and downloaded both ISOs, planning on testing them against my favourite VectorLinux Light 6.0. These are live CD isos and they proved to be un-installable, so they’re nothing I’m interested in for the moment. Will have to wait till the first installable ISO is out.

However, I was reading up about testing distros against one another for this purpose after being pointed at benchmarking on the VectorLinux forum. In the course of my search I found an interesting post on benchmarking Arch Linux vs. Ubuntu, and I figured I could do a little benchmarking myself

Cognitive prerequisites for running Linux on old hardware

Okay, I know the title is very big-headed, but I have thought about how finding the right Linux distribution for your old hardware isn’t simply determined by the hardware itself, but equally by how much you know or are willing to learn about Linux. Which is why I want to write about a few things that I think might be helpful to know before you attempt to install Linux (hopefully VectorLinux Light) on your old machine. Please keep in mind that all of this is from my own, a distinctly newbie, perspective and will probably not be d’accord with the experiences, ideas or opinions of more estimated users of Linux or indeed “users” in general. In the light of the latest Win vs. Linux scandal, and coming from years of using Windows myself, I guess this post would be first and foremost addressed to any Windows user who wants to try Linux on their old machine in order to raise it from the dead.

So what in Linus Torvalds’ name, then, are the “cognitive prerequisites” of running Linux on an old laptop?

Spoilt for choice – spoiled choice: Finding the right Linux distribution for my old laptop

So, there I was, with a new old complimentary laptop. Great, because I’ve never owned one. Not so great, because it was running W*****s 2k and sluggish. As I had to do a little MySQL and PHP and needed to svn stuff, I thought it was a great idea to install Linux.

So far so good, I g**gled, and minutes later was downloading a Xubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibis ISO. Burnt that, and flew through the user-friendly install routines. “Great”, I thought, “so Linux has changed a lot since I last used it.”

Hardware Check

Before I dive deep into the quest for the right Linux distribution (a matter obviously solved, but undescribed as of yet), I would like to accustom the dear reader with some technical specifications & requirements, i.e. my old laptop. This is just so that the dear reader can approximate whether any solutions provided here may work for her/himself as well.

“There is no such thing as a free breakfast”? Yes, there is! I got a laptop for free. I guess it was state-of-the-art when it was produced and issued, and I must say it still isn’t so bad,

Mission Statement

Perhaps I should really start out with saying something about the ‘why’ of running such a blog as this.

There are already quite a few websites around which deal with running Linux on old laptops (try this G**gle search). However, everybody has different needs, and hence I should probably say a little about what I was personally looking for.

YALOOLB: Yet Another Linux on Old Laptop Blog

So, I’ve got this old Laptop for free (btw: I recently had a discussion with my neighbour about what the word geek actually means, so be prepared for what follows). It’s old, i.e. slow. It had W*****s 2000 as its original OS, and that basically sucked. What I wanted was a laptop I can actually use for stuff (e.g., for writing, surfing, a bit of DTP (L^AT_EX) and whatever might come to my mind I want to do with it, not going berserk of course).

I have a few friends and acquaintances of the geek-ish type, and I ran into Linux when I had to use it on my then flatmate’s desktop pc. Found it interesting then, but never kept track. But now it became an option again.