Only 32 Mb of RAM ~ What OS should I use?

[Cyber6]

A friend was throwing away a Thinkpad 380ED (Pentium MMX 166/66 MHz with 1Gb HDD and 32 MB of Ram)... It has not been used for years due to the power cable being burnt and stuck to the laptop itself. I took it home, remove the power cable and connected a proper one (from another thinkpad I have).. the machine boots up with no problem.. seems to be quite fast . . The screen is perfect and the graphics and sound is good. Now, the problem is that after 5 - 10 minutes it will freeze. The operating system is Win98. It seems to me that this machine doesn't have enough memory to run Win98. I tried to run it in safe mode .. in that mode I can hold it for maybe 15 minutes without freezing.

I found a Linux distro that needs a minimun of 64MB. Are there any other distros that can run on less than 32MB of Ram???

Please, don't ask me to get more RAm... I don't even know if that is why the machine keeps freezing up.

Thanks for all your help..

C.


Edit: Puppy Linux seems to be a good one (runs from floppy)

[Daggerfall_Addict]

I have heard darn small linux is good... I used to have a laptop which I ran dos only on... had arachnid web browser and some dos email suite... even had an mp3 player etc..

[Cyber6]

Originally Posted by Daggerfall_Addict I have heard darn small linux is good... I used to have a laptop which I ran dos only on... had arachnid web browser and some dos email suite... even had an mp3 player etc..

Thank you very much... this is exactly what I am looking for.


http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/


please keep the great suggestions coming...


C.

[glc]

32mb of ram should run Win98SE just fine. You need to look at hardware issues and OS corruption as causes of the freezeups. Start by testing the ram and hard drive.

[Cyber6]

Originally Posted by glc 32mb of ram should run Win98SE just fine. You need to look at hardware issues and OS corruption as causes of the freezeups. Start by testing the ram and hard drive.

Don't know about Win98SE (it requires a min of 64 Mb of Ram)... but I have already confirmed that it should be running Win98 with no problems. I did a HDD scan and it seems to be fine. I have clean up a lot of crap that was on it and I have it running a little more stable now. I am no expert with Win98.. and I can't figure out what other processes are running on the background... reason why I will rather install a lite-os and see if I can salvage this machine.

I am still amazed at thinkpads craftmanship... screen is perfect.. and the battery still holds a charge (30 - 40 minutes).

I still have to test the ram.

C.

[Winnipesaukee]

How about Unix?

[LocoCoyote]

A common misconception this is.......

Linux doesn't require a ton of RAM. The most common GUIs (KDE and Gnome) do require tons of RAM. Linux runs just fine on 32MB (I am talking SuSE 9.3 w\o in command line mode). Adding a GUI kills performance for the dubious advantage of a GUI.

The other alteernative is to run a more bare bones WM. I like IceWM myself.

[glc]

No, 98SE does NOT require 64mb of ram. The *minimum* requirements are a 486DX2/66 and 16mb of ram (Pentium 75 and 24mb ram recommended for full functionality). I've run it very nicely on a Pentium 100 desktop with 32mb of ram. I also have run 98 original on a 486DX4/75 laptop with 20mb of ram - it was slow as snails but it was stable and never locked up.

I know this is the AltOS forum, and you are asking about Linux, but I still need to keep things straight.

If you have 98 on it now and it's freezing even in safe mode, you probably have a hardware problem of some sort, or Windows is thoroughly corrupted. Lack of ram is not causing this problem.

[Cyber6]

Originally Posted by glc I know this is the AltOS forum, and you are asking about Linux, but I still need to keep things straight.

My original question was about OS that can run with little ram. I don't think I step out of bounds there.

Originally Posted by glc If you have 98 on it now and it's freezing even in safe mode, you probably have a hardware problem of some sort, or Windows is thoroughly corrupted. Lack of ram is not causing this problem.

Update:.. After scanning the HDD and the RAm.. I found out htta the HDD is fine..but the Ram is corrupted. I keep freezing whenever trying to scan the Ram.

Thanks very much for all your help. My next step will be trying to find Ram for a Thinkpad 380ED.

C.

[rspassey]

If you are staying with a small amount of ram, then consider damn small linux, it is a charm.