First off: What are the differences between a base install and a full install - aside from system requirements - beyond a prettier window manager. If I were to go off the FAQ I would think that IceWM is 300Mb packed and 1.3Gb installed, and is a matter of aesthetic preference. I know better, besides I already know I'm missing a GUI package manager and a GUI network config utility in a base install with Fluxbox.

In particular - if I have an old laptop with a PIII and 256mb ram and 40Gb HDD (plenty for me), what are the likely performance differences? Are games likely to run better with a base install? Would a full install likely cause the internet to not work as well?

Second: My laptop has a CD-ROM drive (no DVD) and a USB port, but it can't boot off the USB port (like the option to boot from the USB isn't in the BIOS setup.) My recordable CDs can take about 702Mb max and the full install ISOs are about 734mb.

What would be a way that I could do a full version install? I'm thinking:
A. Somehow install from USB after I live-boot from a CD
B. Write the full ISO to the HDD and get it to install from that
C. Upgrade the lite install to a full install online

Computer: Dell Latitude C510/C610 (Model:PP01L)
CPU: Pentium III m 1200mhz
Video: Mobility Radeon 7000 (RV100)
RAM: 247M (256? Could be cheating?*)
HDD: 40gb (I only want to be using 10-25Gb myself leaving 15Gb for system/temp/swap/etc)

*The model is supposed to have 128Mb RAM. I don't know if Dell was cheating by setting BIOS to treat another 118Mb of the disk as RAM. If so"$ free" still shows 252680kb total memory but it shows an extra 92,128kb being used from what my system monitor says is being used. Very strange. Anyone know what's going on here or how much RAM I actually have?

There is no performance difference between base and full.

You can do a hybrid live boot. Make a full LiveUSB and a base LiveCD. Boot the LiveCD and type in the boot parameter"from=usb". This will cause it to boot the full system from the LiveUSB using the kernel and initrd from the LiveCD. I am amazed that so many people are finding this useful. We're adding it to the"F4 Options" menu in the upcoming version.

I believe the difference between 256M and 247M is the size of the space reserved for the kernel.

Both full and base will use much less than 10 Gig of disk space. More space will be used if you start installing packages but 10 Gig should be ample for the system.

It would be easier to explain the output of the free command if you showed us what the output is. I suggest you use"free -m" to make it display megabytes instead of kilobytes.

As you can see from my signature, I have been using older Dell parts to make my JUNKBOX. My FULL install of antiX 13.2 took up about 8 GB. And even now with all the updates, additions (mostly adding games), and bells-and-whistles I have added has not gone over 11 Gb on the hard drive. You could easily divide your hard drive into 2 separate partitions of 25 Gb and 15 GB (or 20/20), using the first for the antiX install and the second as your storage for downloads, music, videos, etc.

Big secret! Even though Dell (and others) state that your computer can"only hold" say 128 Mb of memory, most can take more. The GX110 motherboard I have was only supposed to hold 128 Mb of memory. I have 512 Mb installed and she runs great. The BIOS was updated to the last available update, so that may have done something as well. With a laptop, getting the correct memory chips can be a PITA, because of availability and cost. Ebay is a good stop to search.

The full iso will fit on a cd if that is what you are worried about. I am guessing that you are looking at the source forge page and thinking that it is to big for the cd and thus downloaded base instead. This is not the case. Source forge measures the size of the iso in mega bits where as the cd measures the capacity it can handle in mega bytes. Iirc the iso size in mega bytes is in the area of 694MB. So it won't fit on a 12v without issue. Just make sure that you download is stable by doing an md5 sum check before burning (otherwise you could waste a cd and a lot of time)

I have a sony vaio laptop of similar vintage to your dell (see my signature). I only run the full versions of antiX. as has been said there is not performance difference. You are only using more disk space, but I find the included apps to be handy.

As far as your memory use, its quite possible that your laptop is sharing main system memory with the video card. this is quite common on laptops of this vintage (and still common today). The ram the system reserves for the video card will not show up as available to the OS. Same thing happens in windows systems, as the ram usage is handled at the system level.

or it could be that kernel thing __{{emoticon}}__