iKap Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 Well I dont know if you guys remember my topic where I asked you all which distro would match my needs according to specs. But I just gave you guys a range of specs, nothing exact. Well now its for sure! Here are the exact specs.. - Intel Celeron 1.7GHz - 256MB RAM - 40GB HD - CD ROM Drive - 1.44 floppy drive Its a Samba(SM)-1845 Small Form-Factor PC, never heard of it? I haven't either haha. I'm getting it for a fairly decent price through a friend, so i said why not? Keep in mind this computer will be dedicated to linux only, because i really want to get familiar with it and learn. More Info/Specs/Etc: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mobile/di...-samba1845.html Not starting my last thread ALL OVER again, but do you guys think that PC will be fine? It supports up to 1GB of ram, which i will definitely upgrade down the line. But yeah I'm getting it for around $115.. just the computer. Planning on running Ubuntu fully, and playing around with Fedora, Arch, Shift, etc.. You guys think I will be fine? Hows the price for that pc? All feedback will be greatly appreciated, thanks in advance! :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 13, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 13, 2008 My computer is an Athlon XP at 1.2MHz with 512MB RAM. I use the much lighter Fluxbox as a Window Manager instead of a full Gnome Desktop Environment. I would find the performance of Gnome on a 256MB box to be too slow and unresponsive to me. But everyone's own perception of what is slow or unacceptable is different. Give it a try. If you feel you need a performance boost (and don't want to shell out extra money for RAM), try installing XFCE for a nice GUI with a lighter footprint. Flux is even lighter, but might be a bit too different for you if you like the start menu thing, and have a fondness for desktop icons. Neither of those exist in Fluxbox by default. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 My computer is an Athlon XP at 1.2MHz with 512MB RAM. I use the much lighter Fluxbox as a Window Manager instead of a full Gnome Desktop Environment.I would find the performance of Gnome on a 256MB box to be too slow and unresponsive to me. But everyone's own perception of what is slow or unacceptable is different. Give it a try. If you feel you need a performance boost (and don't want to shell out extra money for RAM), try installing XFCE for a nice GUI with a lighter footprint. Flux is even lighter, but might be a bit too different for you if you like the start menu thing, and have a fondness for desktop icons. Neither of those exist in Fluxbox by default. Yeah good point, but I don't think I'm ready for Fluxbox quite YET. XFCE is probably what I'm going to have to go with. Even though I really wanted to start working with gnome :( but I guess thats fine till I upgrade the ram. What do you think about the price of the computer? Decent? Good? Bad? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foub Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 My system is an Intel 3.4 GHz (MSI MoBo) with 1GB of RAM and everything runs pretty good full out under Gnome, though I recently disabled Compiz-Fusion because it seemed to interfere with some of the OpenGL games under Ubuntu as well. The games, like Dark Horizon: Lore and VDrift, run beautifully now and I don't miss XP either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 13, 2008 Author Share Posted January 13, 2008 With 3.4GHz with 1GB RAM I could guess you would have no problems at all, good to hear you are able to still play games! But do you think the price I'm paying is decent? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Foub Posted January 13, 2008 Share Posted January 13, 2008 With 3.4GHz with 1GB RAM I could guess you would have no problems at all, good to hear you are able to still play games! But do you think the price I'm paying is decent? Of course it depends on where you live as to what the prices are. $115 sounds good though. A local computer store sells a Linux desktop system (new) for around $300 without the monitor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kreuger Posted January 14, 2008 Share Posted January 14, 2008 But everyone's own perception of what is slow or unacceptable is different. That's for sure. 2.08ghz with 2gb ram under Fluxbox seems a bit slower than I'd expect but I can manage because it's not utterly slow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 14, 2008 Author Share Posted January 14, 2008 That's for sure. 2.08ghz with 2gb ram under Fluxbox seems a bit slower than I'd expect but I can manage because it's not utterly slow. What the ****? Slower then windows? Then whats the point? I thought Linux is suppose to be faster especially when your using FLUXBOX. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 14, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 14, 2008 He didn't say slower than Windows. Just slower than he expected. And that could very well be from application selection (loading in KDE/QT libraries and such from running kmail or such). Loading in all the libraries for Gnome will consume quite a bit of RAM, just because you chose to run gedit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 14, 2008 Author Share Posted January 14, 2008 He didn't say slower than Windows. Just slower than he expected. And that could very well be from application selection (loading in KDE/QT libraries and such from running kmail or such). Loading in all the libraries for Gnome will consume quite a bit of RAM, just because you chose to run gedit. In simpler terms you mean running KDE applications? Sorry I'm very new haha so I need things to put the simplest way possible. Loading in all the libraries for Gnome will consume quite a bit of RAM, just because you chose to run gedit. Then what should you do to save ram? And by Gnome libraries as I said above, do you mean all the gnome applications? Or default ones at least? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 14, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 14, 2008 Yeah. If you use flux, and call up a KDE app, it must load in all the needed overhead for menu styles and rendering things the "KDE way". Things you can do, if running fluxbox (and resources are thin), is to avoid KDE and Gnome apps where possible. I use nedit for my quick text editing, instead of gedit or kate. Personally, I still use heavy apps like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, but if my resources were very low, I would have to look for replacements for those heavy apps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rage710 Posted January 14, 2008 Share Posted January 14, 2008 Yeah. If you use flux, and call up a KDE app, it must load in all the needed overhead for menu styles and rendering things the "KDE way".Things you can do, if running fluxbox (and resources are thin), is to avoid KDE and Gnome apps where possible. I use nedit for my quick text editing, instead of gedit or kate. Personally, I still use heavy apps like Firefox and OpenOffice.org, but if my resources were very low, I would have to look for replacements for those heavy apps. Have you tried out openbox? I am using it now on my comp, and I seem to find that it uses less mem than fluxbox. Do you know if there is a command for opening up a program kinda like alt-f2 for openbox like in gnome? As I have to open nm-applet to get my wifi card to connect to my network, via terminal. Also, speaking of term, do you know of any lightweight ones? the gnome terminal takes a few secs to load. As for the computer you're talking about, I have almost the identical specs for my laptop, except mine is a p4m and 1gb of ram, and it runs great. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 14, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 14, 2008 There isn't much difference between openbox and fluxbox, from what I can see. Flux supports more "eye candy", like having a small icon for your menu items. Wooo! Going crazy there! :p I don't think there is significant differences in resource usage between the *boxes. (but I could be wrong) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 15, 2008 Author Share Posted January 15, 2008 (edited) If you using xfce.. which kind of apps should i be downloading? As in.. what are they called? Do they have a special name such as "XAPPS, etc" u get the point lol. And is installation of apps similar to that of windows? Because i was with a friend today and he was installing vlc on his fedora gnome comp, and before doing so he was typing in some fancy stuff in the terminal to get some sort of packet? Cant some please explain the basic concept of this, because i kind of dont get it. Yes i tried reading around, but there is just so much info about linux.. and so many fancy terms, that half the time i have no clue what im reading about. One more thing, where can i find the "offical documentation" for Xubuntu? I found the Ubuntu one with lots of topics here: https://help.ubuntu.com/ but the xubuntu one seems rather short. Or does the Ubuntu one apply towards Xubuntu as well? And brief intro to what "sudo" and "apt-get" are? Links to articles explaing them would be fine too! Thanks! Edited January 15, 2008 by iKap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 15, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 15, 2008 Well, you can install any apps you like. I would not stress out about loading in the KDE or Gnome libraries at this time. And, if you use XFCE (as in a Xubuntu install), then you should already have a good set of apps installed. As far as installing apps goes, some people (like me) prefer to use the command line to do that work. Fedora can use a command like yum install vlc (as in your example). In that case, "yum" is the package manager installed in Fedora. In Debian derivitives, like *buntu, the package manager is apt. So the command would be apt-get install vlc. They essentially do the same thing for their respective systems. Instead of the command line, you can use a GUI front-end like synaptic to pop open a window with panes for searching, listing and for descriptions. Click the check box, click the install button at the top, and you have the app installed. Most documentation for Ubuntu will largely apply to Xubuntu. You might have to substitute a command like "sudo gedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf" because Xubuntu may not have gedit. Use "sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf" or some other such text editor instead, but the process will be the same for most things. Now, all I have left is the "sudo" thing. That allows a normal user (like your account you create) to do "root" (or super user) things like system administration. Think of "sudo" as "Super User DO" to do tasks that require higher privileges. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 15, 2008 Author Share Posted January 15, 2008 Wow thanks so much, that was very well put and cleared things up for me! But yeah today i burned the Xubuntu live cd and played around with it on my laptop, and quite honestly it seemed pretty simple/easy to me. I mean it will take some time getting use to but for the most part everything is straight forward. And instead of using terminal i used the GUI Add/Remove Programs app.. which was very impressive. (I didnt know that existed lol) And it actually lets you search for apps and install them with a click of a button!!! As far as the XFCE interface goes, it wasn't bad at all. I actually liked because its simple and runs VERY smoothly. I know i asked this quesiton a million times, but there is no problem installing gnome apps correct? For example I installed VLC which seems to be one of the "gnome" apps. But it worked perfectly fine. What i mean is, it wont cause any system crashes or errors right? Or kill my ram? Thanks so much Mark! I knew i would fall in love with linux, as soon as id get the basic concept of how things work, having a great deal of windows knowledge finally paid off! Thats the only thing i can thank bill gates for haha. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 15, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 15, 2008 No problems at all running gnome or kde apps on XFCE, Fluxbox or whatever. (Y) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 15, 2008 Author Share Posted January 15, 2008 No problems at all running gnome or kde apps on XFCE, Fluxbox or whatever. (Y) But do they take up more resources? I mean if I'm trying to keep everything "decently lite" to be easy on resources, would they make a difference? If so.. huge impact or small? Thanks :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted January 15, 2008 Share Posted January 15, 2008 Mark's right in what he says, but if you're using XFCE you'd be better off trying to stick with GTK or "Gnome" apps. XFCE uses GTK, as does Gnome. KDE uses QT. While you can install and run KDE apps in XFCE, you'll also be loading QT libraries into your ram, which will inevitably put an extra load on your system. There are many GTK equivalent apps, so really you should try and stick to them. In all honesty, you've probably got everything you're likely to need already installed, and anyway, by using Add/Remove you can easily pick-out the KDE/QT apps and avoid them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 16, 2008 Author Share Posted January 16, 2008 Mark's right in what he says, but if you're using XFCE you'd be better off trying to stick with GTK or "Gnome" apps. XFCE uses GTK, as does Gnome. KDE uses QT. While you can install and run KDE apps in XFCE, you'll also be loading QT libraries into your ram, which will inevitably put an extra load on your system. There are many GTK equivalent apps, so really you should try and stick to them.In all honesty, you've probably got everything you're likely to need already installed, and anyway, by using Add/Remove you can easily pick-out the KDE/QT apps and avoid them. Okay cool, one LAST quesiton.. so GTK are the apps Gnome uses correct? And its also what XFCE uses correct? So in other words, gnome and xfce use the same type of apps "GTK". And Xfce doesn't have a diff type of apps.. some are just LIGHTER GTK apps made FOR Xfce? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fish Posted January 16, 2008 Share Posted January 16, 2008 You're kinda getting it ;) . GTK is the toolkit that Gnome and Xfce both use. Read more here. So basically any apps written to use GTK are good for Gnome and Xfce. Gnome is considered to be a more heavyweight Desktop Environment, and is certainly more popular, than Xfce, and so many apps tend to be large and bulky, but fully-featured. They will still work with Xfce, though. Alternatively, there are apps that do a similar job to these apps, but may have less features and thus are more suitable to Xfce and the computers that it's likely to be installed on. They're not made FOR Xfce; just compliment it better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
iKap Posted January 16, 2008 Author Share Posted January 16, 2008 You're kinda getting it ;) . GTK is the toolkit that Gnome and Xfce both use. Read more here. So basically any apps written to use GTK are good for Gnome and Xfce. Gnome is considered to be a more heavyweight Desktop Environment, and is certainly more popular, than Xfce, and so many apps tend to be large and bulky, but fully-featured. They will still work with Xfce, though. Alternatively, there are apps that do a similar job to these apps, but may have less features and thus are more suitable to Xfce and the computers that it's likely to be installed on. They're not made FOR Xfce; just compliment it better. Awesome! I get it now. Thanks a lot. But is there a website, or something where i can get all the "lighter" alternatives or their names at least? For example, OpenOffice Powerpoint.. is there something lighter then that? Once, again thanks so much for helping me out. Im exactly where i need to now, the rest I will learn by playing around and of course using the search feature lol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fred Derf Veteran Posted January 16, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 16, 2008 Here is my oversimplification: If you are running the full KDE environment then you want to try to run QT-based applications whenever possible (i.e. kwrite instead of gedit). If you are running anything other than the full KDE environment then you generally want to avoid QT-based applications (i.e. if the application name starts with "k" then you might want to find a replacement). Sometimes you can, sometimes you can't. There is a minor resource penalty for the few applications that you can't do without. No big deal really. I run a Linux box on 192MB RAM. It's okay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markwolfe Veteran Posted January 16, 2008 Veteran Share Posted January 16, 2008 GTK is the toolkit that Gnome and Xfce both use.I learn something new every day :yes:I haven't used XFCE very much, and didn't know that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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