Recommend me a Light OS for 4 year old Laptop

[Funkysourav]

Hey Guys
Recommend me a Lightweight Linux Distro/ a tool to Strip Windows XP of unused features to run on my 4 year old laptop

Hardware Specs
2GHz Celeron Proccy, 512MB Ram, 80 Gigs HDD

Usage
Need the Laptop to run
Basic Web Browser (Firefox/Opera)
uTorrent/Comparable torrent Client
SabNZBD+
Basic Firewall

[Nikanth]

hi mine is 10 year old 1GHz intel celeron.. im using windows xp sp2.. Use tune up 2009 version .. it will make pc very fast...

[hellnoire]

hi mine is 10 year old 1GHz intel celeron.. im using windows xp sp2.. Use tune up 2009 version .. it will make pc very fast...

SP2 is completely out of date. Update to SP3 please, for security's sake, or you'll be sorry.

To Funkysourav, my personal choices are Arch with LXDE or PuppyLinux. But Lubuntu should be lightweight too.

If you want Windows, XP SP3 should be fine, just use nLite or something.

[Bearcat]

Hi Funkysourav. Windows XP sp3 runs just fine on my sisters 10 year Dell with less capable hardware than you have, so it should work just fine on your laptop.

[Networx]

Windows XP SP3 will do, it has support till 2014. You can delete any Windows components from add/remove programs.

My old system use XP + Zonealarm Free

Use TuneUp or Glary Utilities. Both has memory optimization and some tools offer Turbo mode which disable unnecessary Windows functions and makes PC faster. utorrent is lightest torrent client I know.

Not much pro in Linux but I have heard that Knoppix is very light.

[Nikanth]

SP2 is completely out of date. Update to SP3 please, for security's sake, or you'll be sorry.

hi i updated SP3 .. but it made my pc some slow.. so i restore my sp2..

[Funkysourav]

Hey guys,
i would like to stay as close to windows environment as possible
as i am not quite familiar with Linux Distros

My laptop is already running XP SP3 with all the available updates
since it is a genuine version that i am running, is there any way to strip down my original CD to just basic components?
without risking the validity/authenticity of my license
or better still, can some tool remove the un needed components from my already installed OS?
since re-installation is a PITA :P

thanks for your recommendations
will look into nLite (looks promising)

[Christy]

1.Tiny Core Linux: Micro 10Mb Core Linux
For Dual boot (Windows/Tinycore)
http://wiki.tinycorelinux.net/wiki:install_with_windows


2. XPlite and 2000lite
http://www.litepc.com/xplite.html


3. React OS(23mb)- Windows Xp/2003 Based
The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows® would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS is to allow you to remove Windows® and install ReactOS without the end user noticing the change
Download:
http://www.reactos.org/en/download.html


4. Noteworthy:
Damn Small Linux.(<50mb)
Puppy Linux.(<100mb)
Ubuntu GTK1.2 Remix.(<200mb)


5.Others
(<2Mb?) Contiki
(<2Mb) QNX Floppy demo
(<2Mb) KolibriOS (based on MenuetOS) a GUI OS
(<2Mb) Balder (based on FreeDOS)
(~11Mb) FreeDOS + OpenGEM (4.4Mb) - DOS compatible GUI
(~30Mb) KolibriOS CD version (based on MenuetOS) a GUI OS
(<50Mb) DamnSmall BSD - based on FreeBSD, but with Fluxbox
(<100Mb) Milax - Solaris live CD



(<1Mb) muLinux
(~3Mb) BasicLinux - Slackware 4 + X + e-mail + presentation
(~3Mb) Mungkie - (aka 2diskXwin)
(~4Mb) Blueflops - 2 floppy graphical web browser
(8.9Mb) Geexbox (Media Center only)
(10Mb) Tiny Core - Linux 2.6 kernel, Busybox, Tiny X, Fltk, and Jwm
(12Mb) Grey Cat Linux - Slackware based with IceWM
(<20Mb) TINY
(~25Mb) SliTaz with JWM
(29Mb) LinuxConsole Micro - GUI IceWM
(<50Mb) DamnSmallLinux - based on Knoppix, but with JWM and Fluxbox
(44Mb) Jinx - with Opera 9, Flash, Textmaker and Planmaker.
(<50Mb) Austrumi - A business card size bootable live CD Linux distribution based on Slackware.
(<50Mb) MeanPup -A live distro based on Puppy
(<50Mb) Mitrax -A live distro based on Slackware
(<50Mb) Luit - XFCE and ROXFile



(80Mb) LiMP - Linux Media Player turns your PC into a jukebox.
(<100Mb) NimbleX sub100 - Slackware based with KDE (or 69Mb with no GTK or multimedia)
(<100Mb) Puppy Linux - live with JWM (see also eBoxPup, IcePup, LitePup, MiniPup, PizzaPup, SafePup, SurfPup and XPuppyPro)
(82Mb) KioskCD - web browser only
(84Mb) DamnSmallLinux-Not - distro using Knoppix hardware recognition with Abiword and Gnumeric.
(<128Mb) DeLi - Desktop Light
(<128Mb) SLAX Popcorn Edition- A smaller version of SLAX with Xfce
(<128Mb) FeatherLinux - Knoppix based distro with Fluxbox



(177Mb) TinyMe - based on pcLinuxOS, but with Openbox
(182Mb) Kurumin 6 Light - Knoppix based, with KDE
(183Mb) WebConverger Mini based on Debian Live
(187Mb) Ubuntu GTK1.2 Remix - Ubuntu Hardy Heron for sub 300Mhz PCs
(200Mb) NimbleX - Slackware based with Enlightenment, IceWM, JWM, Fluxbox
(~200Mb) PUD - based on Ubuntu
(~200Mb) Slax - Distro based on Slackware using KDE
(223Mb) TinyFlux - based on TinyMe, with Fluxbox
(230Mb) Kanotix CpxMini, Kanotix, but with Fluxbox
(241Mb) Wolvix Cub
(<250Mb) Featherweight- based on Feather Linux, but with KDE
(<256Mb) Flash Linux- Gentoo-based, initially designed to run off of a 256Mb USB key.



(278Mb) AliXe - Slax based with Xfce
(273Mb) Icebuntu - Ubuntu + IceWM (live cd username is ubuntu)
(293Mb) Draco Linux - SLiM login manager + Fluxbox + Xfce
(300Mb) Fluxbuntu - Ubuntu 7.10 based with Fluxbox
(319Mb) WebConverger Maxi based on Debian live
(410Mb) AntiX - MEPIS based with Fluxbox
(440Mb) TheLittleDebian - Spanish
(551Mb) Kanotix Lite with KDE
(614Mb) SaxenOS 1 - with EDE
(626Mb) MEPISLite - MEPIS based with KDE
(633Mb) Crunchbang - Ubuntu with Openbox (and Conky!)
(662Mb) eLive - Debian based with Enlightenment
(673Mb) SOAD - OpenSUSE 11 with Enlightenment 17
(693Mb) MoonOS - Debian with Enlightenment 17 or LXDE
(696Mb) OzOS - Xubuntu (or Debian) + e17
(699Mb) SAM - A LiveCD based on PCLinuxOS, but with Xfce.


If u dont like linux distros ,try "React OS" , in vmware first.


Courtesy: darrelljon : Ubuntu forums

---------- Post added at 08:30 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:21 PM ----------

Life Hackers n-Lite Tutorial
http://lifehacker.com/374376/trim-do...are-essentials



Courtesy: Adam Pash

[JayCub]

i have used nlite many times on XP and never had a problem as you can really strip xp down if that's what you want and still have a very reasonable operating system, turn off the candy... either way this is road i would take to stay close to a windows O/S especially with 512 mb of ram..

[Funkysourav]

3. React OS(23mb)- Windows Xp/2003 Based
The main goal of the ReactOS project is to provide an operating system which is binary compatible with Windows. This will allow your Windows applications and drivers to run as they would on your Windows system. Additionally, the look and feel of the Windows operating system is used, such that people accustomed to the familiar user interface of Windows® would find using ReactOS straightforward. The ultimate goal of ReactOS is to allow you to remove Windows® and install ReactOS without the end user noticing the change
Download:
http://www.reactos.org/en/download.html

thank you so much Christy for pointing me to RectOS
this might be just the thing i need

but seeing some reports of random crashes and instability in some forums
lets run it in VMware and see