[NTLUG:Discuss] Re: ThinkPad 570 Memory (PC-88 SO-DIMM, 32-128MB)

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sat, 2004-08-28 at 19:04, Ralph Green, Jr wrote:
> To forestall the the obvious questions, let me add that I created a
> swap file of 512 meg and used it when installing.  SuSE says it will
> install with as little as 64 meg if you do this.
> I have tried on several machines I can say that it always fails with
> 64meg and I can always get it to work with 96 meg or more.  I have not
> tried 80 meg, so I don't know where the actual cutoff is.

Nothing against SuSE, but you may wish to consider another distribution
because of the footprint.  Most commercial distros tend to have beefy
requirements and, even more so, beefy expectations in defaults.

I'm sure the Debian, Slackware and Gentoo people have numerous
complements for their own distributions.

Not coincidentally, even Red Hat distributions are now benefiting from
more community input and control.  Fedora Core 2 will install (text
mode) in as little as 32MB with swap, 64MB without swap (48MB might
suffice -- Red Hat _always_over_ estimates).

Fedora Core 2 also now offers XFCE as a fully supported, standard
desktop framework (session, window and file manager) alongside GNOME and
KDE.  The community screamed for a lighterweight offering with a smaller
footprint, and XFCE works quite well.  I know Alan Cox installed Fedora
Core 2 on, and is running with, a WinChip2 240MHz with 48MB of RAM.


-- 
Compatibility and update matrix of Red Hat(R) distributions:  
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http://www.vaporwarelabs.com/files/temp/RH-Distribution-FAQ-4.html 
------------------------------------------------------------------ 
Bryan J. Smith                                  b.j.smith at ieee.org