Trying out Linux

Note, if you're just starting out, this may all be a bit too much to worry about, so just ignore it, but once you get a feel it may come provide some starting points of what to tinker with.

You can check your memory usage with the command



(the m argument displays MB instead of default kb). If without running any programs you start using swap space, then you need to do something. One of the biggest memory hog is likely to be a fancy DE, such as Gnome or KDE. They provide a very convenient, eye candy, bells n whistles package, but if you don't make use of the features, you may as well ditch it. I don't have a comparison to Vista, but KDE4/Gnome provide a lot more features and integration than the windows DE you are used to. Features start with a task bar, system tray, context menues and content previews and really have no end to them. If you want to strike a compromise between some comfort and memory usage, I'd recommend XFCE. This is still a DE with some basic features, and is kind of level with what you're used from WinXP etc. If you want to speed up the system even further, you can abandon the idea of a DE altogether and opt for a lightweight 'window manager'. That'll still give you a graphical interface that is multiwindow capable, and usually also some kind of start menu, but usually without things like task bars, context menues, fancy file managers etc. Anything with box in the name is good, take your pick: Fluxbox, Openbox, Blackbox, ...

If you're still low on RAM, consider using alternative tools for the job. A 64MB memory machine probably won't be your major work horse, so you can replace many progs by slimmed down, but fast es heck versions. E.g. Dillo as a webbrowser (instead of Firefox), and Ted as a word processor (instead of OpenOffice). You'll be amazed of the performance you can get out of old hardware with the right setup. Before faffing around a lot yourself, you can also save yourself most of the trouble, and try a specialised distro made for low-end hardware, that takes care of all that already, e.g. DamnSmallLinux (DSL), VectorLinux or PuppyLinux. I was extremely impressed by DSL last time I tried it ... I ran the LiveCD version, with is only 50MB in total (quick download btw, hint hint go try it) on an old Pentium (dont recall if I or II) laptop with 64MB ram. Remember live CD means the whole thing runs in RAM, no installation, no writing to disc. Yet, web browsing, email, word processing and what not was blazingly fast, even downloading extra apps (into RAM) from the repository could slow it down!