[NBLUG/talk] Cheap Computers for All

[Bob Blick]

On 23 Dec 2005 at 17:34, R C Smith wrote:
> I put Damn Small Linux on a Toshiba laptop Portage T3600CT 486 50 MHz 24 MB
> memory 500 MB HD. Swap was set to 96 MB The display is vga only. It was work
> because no cd boot, parallel port cd. I did this to get support for a pcmcia
> wireless card.
> The laptop was reasonably fast on Win 95 and even ran Office 2000. With DSL
> it is glacial 5 minutes to boot. Firefox takes over 15 minutes to load as
> does Open Office and AbiWord.. It will run Dillo and the FLWriter slower
> than you would like but useable. VGA resolution limits usefulness on the
> web.
I had one of those 3600's at one time! Not very fast at all as I recall. Much slower than the same 
speed desktop machine. In Windows 95, dragging an icon across the desktop, it stops momentarily 
as you pass other icons. Designed for Windows 3.1, that's what it originally came with.

It doesn't surprise me Firefox or OpenOffice don't run so well. 24MB ram just isn't enough for them.

There is a minimal mode for Damn Small Linux that conserves RAM, that might make it a bit better.

However, any Pentium runs Damn Small Linux pretty well.

Cheerful regards,

Bob