Linux flavours

Posted on September 20, 2007
Filed Under Technology |

I was just thinking about the different operating systems that I am using at the moment.

I have a friends laptop at the moment that I have installed Knoppix 5.1. I used this because Ubuntu needed too much RAM. This laptop has only 256 meg of RAM. I found that Knoppix has given new life to this computer. It did have Windows XP installed but it was so slow that it was unuseable. The only problem I have had is in getting the wireless working with the WPA security. But I believe it is solveable.
The kids computer has Fedora 7 installed. I used this distro because I had problems installing Ubuntu because of driver issues. I am using the Gnome desktop so it has a familiar feel. My wife also uses this computer and she is a complete newbie who really doesn’t get technology. Yet she is using this for web browsing and email very competently.
I have an old Compaq laptop that is running Gentoo. This is using a KDE desktop. It works. This laptop is about 8 years old and can still do most of the functions that I need it to do. I think it is running a Pentium 4.
I have a server set up that is using Ubuntu. Again it works well doesn’t need the latest processor or a huge amount of RAM to operate. It is functioning very well in its new role and I have plans to use it as a web server in the near future.

Linux is great. For most of the basic functions it does everything very competently. And, once you get the hang of it it is easy to add stuff that you need as you go along. It is also a great conserver of resources.

Want to get a bit more life out of that old computer then linux may be the answer for you.