Re: [Comm-en] System Requiremtnts for ALT Linux

[Michael Shigorin <mike@osdn.org.ua>]

On Sun, May 02, 2004 at 03:05:34AM -0700, Ariel Lavi wrote:
> Portable, Digital HiNote VP
> Pentium 133MhZ
> 64 MB RAM

Enough.

> 200MB-1GB free HD space (I can free up some space by deleting
> MS Office and Windows)

Errr... last time I've generated a workstation out of p133/64M,
it fit in some 800M (don't remember how much /home was though).

That was Junior 2.0 but Compact 2.3 will install and run just the
same.  You may be interested in getting 2.6 series kernel
(available prepackaged) running there as it heavily improves on
disk I/O.

> Desk Computer, Digital Kawaii
> Pentium Pro 200MhZ
> 20 MB RAM

Won't be enough to install AFAIR (may be wrong for text mode).
In any case, PPro with that much RAM is OUCH! (I own 2xPPro
system with only 64M found for that, wish I could stick half a
gig there...)

If you manage to find some 32M RAM just for install time, that'd
be enough for sure, if not -- try to install as-is (if that
fails, taking the drive to another system, installing there and
getting it back should do).

> 2.3 GB free HD space

Perfectly OK.

> I read the system requirements for ALt linux and both of my
> computers don't seem to fit in.

Well those are recommended, not mininimal reqs ;-)  A friend of
mine runs it on a P90/8M router laptop, and I used to get it onto
similar systems with 32 to 48M RAM.  When I owned the same spec
system I've already preferred "big RAM, big tube" approach.

So it was p133/430HX/96M :-)

> I am looking for only four main function:
> 1. Internet (E-Mail and text, no special Graphics)

Will do.  Mozilla and Mozilla Mail, or Sylpheed.

I'm afraid the browser which could fit the bill even better --
links with graphics support -- isn't available for Compact 2.3,
somehow nobody apparently built it.

You can take Mozilla/Firefox ("firefox") and Mozilla/Thunderbird
("thunderbird") packages from Compact Contribs, Sisyphus, and/or
Daedalus.

> 2. Office (Creating, reading and prinitng text documents, it is
> essential they could be opened by MS-Office users as well)

Ugh.  It means OpenOffice.org; 1.1 should run quite OK there as
I've sound myself mumbling "good enough" with *much* slower OOo
1.0 and earlier on K5-75/32..48M.

It's there.

> 3. Support for Hebrew file names.

Don't know that.  Still, there's at least one developer from
Israel here (Yehuda Ben-Yosef <ilar |at| altlinux |d*t| org>).
Maybe ask him?

> 4. Briefcase (Keeping the files on both computers updated
> easily, without having to remember which files I modified each
> time).

You can achieve that with rsync; don't know whether such tools
exist in GUI'ded manner for Linux.  Didn't do any research though
it's interesting somewhat.

> I don't mind using a text interface or a very low-level GUI.

Well there's WindowMaker in ALT Linux distros although without
much of its applets -- see http://windowmaker.org for info and
http://altlinux.com/index.php?module=sisyphus&group=Graphical%20desktop%2FWindow%20Maker
for names of the packages; there are src.rpm links, you'd get
i586.rpm off
ftp://ftp.altlinux.com/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/Compact/2.3/ALTLinux/RPMS.main/

> I want to kow if I can use ALT linux for those purposes which I
> belueve are very light after all and don't rerquire too much
> from the computer (It's only text and some file management).

Umm... don't remember what's for file management for now (ROX
desktop is quite OK but not sure there were builds in Kontribs),
I personally prefer zsh. :)

> if it is possible, please let me know which version of ALt
> Linux I should download.

This one:
ftp://ftp.altlinux.com/pub/distributions/ALTLinux/ISO/Compact-2.3.iso

-- 
 ---- WBR, Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.ru>
  ------ Linux.Kiev http://www.linux.kiev.ua/