Dell 3000
Intel Celeron CPU 2.66 Hz
2063 MB of RAM



I am using an old Dell 3000 as one of two main computers. At the moment I have Crunchbang 11 and Manjaro Openbox edition 0.8.9 installed. I also use Puppy Linux 5.2.8 from a CD with two save files residing on my Hard drive.

I am at the monet typing this post while booted into MX-14 from a DVD. What would you recomend would be a better fit than Crunchbang or Manjaro for my Dell 3000?

I love the fact that I can boot up Puppy from a DVD. It's super fast. What I love about Antix is that it uses the Debian repos.

Is there a way to have Antix or MX-14 boot into RAM from a CD/DVD, and have the equivalent of save files on my HD that I could use?

Antin and MX-14 are new to me so any help would be greatly appreciated!!

The main thing I do on my Dell is sound recording editing using Audacity.

Look forward to what my options are!!!

Personally, after several years of using Crunchbang, I came over to AntiX full time. So my recomendation is for AntiX. As you know, whatever is in the Debian repos will work.

You can run AntiX with 'persistence', that is the equivalent of Puppy 'save files'. You can run it from ram, but you may have to reconfigure it to do so, there was a thread asking just that a little while ago; try a search for it, if you want to try it out.

As for sound recording/editing; I believe 'Eino' is the chap to follow in his threads on here.

Hope that is of help to you, & welcome to AntiX.

Almost forgot; great forum & very helpful community, just like #!.

N.B. If your machine can boot from a pendrive it is faster & better than a CD/DVD.

Thanks Fatmac!

Would you recomend I install Antix 13 or MX-14? Is Antix leaner than MX-14?

Just out of curiosity, why did you switch from Crunchbang?

Thanks again!!!

32 bit antix is much easier on the ram than MX-14. My MX-14 runs around 140 mb. antiX 32 bit runs around 70 or so by default. You can get it less with some fiddling.

But if you like the desktop on MX-14 and it works for you, then run it. Ram doesn't do anything unless its used. either will run easily in 2 gb of ram.

rmcellig - I run antiX as a frugal install on a hard drive partition. It is fast and reliable. It is not exactly the same as Puppy, but similar.

F4 on the live media has a toram option. Note, since MX-14 and antiX-13.2 are both almost 700MB, copy to ram will take some time (Puppy is only c 120MB iirc). Once copied, the desktop is very responsive.

I would suggest running frugally from a hard drive since it boots much faster than cd/dvd toram.

Thanks for the info!! I think I will install antix because it has spacefm, jwm etc.. Which are very light.

How do I set up a frugal install? This sounds like my best option and should work great on the Dell.

You will need a running grub already installed. It shouldn't matter whether it is grub=legacy or grub2.
It is best to put the files needed on an ext4/3/2 partition.

Basically, you need to copy 3 files from the 'live' antiX folder to the frugal hard drive (initrd.gz, vmlinuz and linuxfs) and set up grub to boot from it.

Thanks!

I found the Frugal Install How to page on the Antix web site. So after doing what you said, that is basically what a frugal install is? I'm really starting to really like this distro. __{{emoticon}}__

Basically yes, (though the information you found might need some alterations). You can also add persistence to frugal antiX (and MX). We have root persistence and home persistence. (Puppy only has what we call root persistence since it runs as root).

Once you are ready to give it a try and if you feel you need some assistence, start a new thread (only so it doesn't get lost in this one and so others can learn from).

I'm glad you replied noting that what I was looking at might need some alterations. I will open a new thread hoping that someone will outline a step by step on how to do a frugal install on my Dell. I so appreciate it!!

Hi rmcellig, I changed over because AntiX was a little more responsive (ie starting a terminal, which I use quite a lot), not a lot of difference, but enough. Also I run 'base' (fluxbox is an old friend) with a couple of additions, so have a smaller installation on my disk. __{{emoticon}}__

Welcome to this world. AntiX 32 bit is easier on the older computers so have at it.