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Post by TheScarletPimpernel on Aug 2, 2023 5:46:47 GMT
Gang,
I am puzzled as to why DistroWatch does not list Bodhi as suitable for old computers. Distrowatch delineates the following for Old Computers:
Antix Puppy Q4OS Alt Linux Tiny core ReactOS wattOS Emmabuntüs LXLE Absolute SliTaz KolibriOS
but no Bodhi. What the kittens?
I have tested all but Emmabuntüs and ReactOS. In terms of desktops, Antix and SliTaz are lighter but both have major issues that do not impact Bodhi (and I'll be boiled alive before I run Antix). Bodhi is comparable to Q4OS and LXLE in terms of lightness and desktops. Puppy is its own delightful thing. If these other distros make the grade it seems to me Bodhi should too.
I do note they are missing other distros too like Porteus, InstantOS, Slax that work well with older hardware.
I am just puzzled by this.
Kindest regards,
The Scarlet Pimpernel
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xpistian
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Post by xpistian on Aug 2, 2023 8:21:52 GMT
Gang, I am puzzled as to why DistroWatch does not list Bodhi as suitable for old computers. Distrowatch delineates the following for Old Computers: Antix Puppy Q4OS Alt Linux Tiny core ReactOS wattOS Emmabuntüs LXLE Absolute SliTaz KolibriOS but no Bodhi. What the kittens? I have tested all but Emmabuntüs and ReactOS. In terms of desktops, Antix and SliTaz are lighter but both have major issues that do not impact Bodhi (and I'll be boiled alive before I run Antix). Bodhi is comparable to Q4OS and LXLE in terms of lightness and desktops. Puppy is its own delightful thing. If these other distros make the grade it seems to me Bodhi should too. I do note they are missing other distros too like Porteus, InstantOS, Slax that work well with older hardware. I am just puzzled by this. Kindest regards, The Scarlet Pimpernel Probably an oversight. I mailed them about it.
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xpistian
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Post by xpistian on Aug 2, 2023 11:39:09 GMT
Fixed.
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Post by thewaiter on Aug 2, 2023 12:28:10 GMT
Hmm. Is it fixed? I can not see Bodhi among old computers category.
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xpistian
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Post by xpistian on Aug 2, 2023 14:14:10 GMT
Hmm. Is it fixed? I can not see Bodhi among old computers category. OK, in fixing.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 2, 2023 14:39:52 GMT
My two cents: The sweet spot for Bodhi is not old computers but computers like my machine:
Machine: Type: Laptop System: Dell product: Inspiron 3180 v: 1.2.0 serial: DJQZ4L2 Mobo: Dell model: 0918N8 v: A00 serial: .DJQZ4L2.CNWSC0081T00HJ. UEFI: Dell v: 1.2.0 date: 02/09/2018 Memory: RAM: total: 3.73 GiB used: 1.10 GiB (29.6%) Array-1: capacity: 8 GiB note: est. slots: 1 EC: None Device-1: DIMM 0 size: 4 GiB speed: 1200 MT/s CPU: Topology: Dual Core model: AMD A6-9220e RADEON R4 5 COMPUTE CORES 2C+3G bits: 64 type: MCP L2 cache: 1024 KiB Speed: 1245 MHz min/max: 1200/1600 MHz Core speeds (MHz): 1: 1206 2: 1220
This is a 5 year old machine that can very barely run Windows 10 but on this machine Bodhi is a rocket - Chromium is very responsive even with 10+ tabs opened. My experience running conventional distros like Bodhi on old computers - 1GB RAM, ~1GHz CPU - has been painful. Although they can run some applications well it will be a tortoise as soon as you start browsing. (Alternative low resource browsers that I have tried all seem to have problems.) In my opinion, old hardware is not suitable for browsing modern websites and browsing is probably 90% of what most users do.
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enigma9o7
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Post by enigma9o7 on Aug 2, 2023 17:36:26 GMT
In terms of desktops, Antix and SliTaz are lighter but both have major issues that do not impact Bodhi (and I'll be boiled alive before I run Antix).
While I 100% agree Bodhi should be on the list for old computers too, what I don't understand is your issue with Antix. Slitaz I can understand, it's very limited. Of all those on the list I think I like Antix the best. What are the major issues with Antix? Or even minor issues? It impresses the heck out of me. Boots with less than 100MB of ram cuz it uses custom kernel and init system, done an excellent job setting up a window manager into basically a full desktop environment, has done really well pulling all the settings together in easily accessible way, and access to debian repos. What more could one want?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2023 5:23:10 GMT
In my opinion, with respect to lightness unconventional distros like SliTaz is in a different class from conventional distros like Bodhi. SliTaz uses some very innovative features to mitigate for the small size of RAM and the slow speed of disks. Conventional distros initially run from a filesystem in RAM disk which was uncompressed from initrd.gz then mounts and transitions to the real disk filesystem. In SliTaz the RAM disk filesystem is the filesystem - it does not transition to a disk filesystem. SliTaz replaces glibc with MUSL a more memory efficient implementation of GNU libc. SliTaz replaces hundreds of Linux binaries with a single binary /bin/busybox, e.g. /bin/init is really a link to /bin/busybox. SliTaz does not use a disk partition or disk file as swap space. It uses a special device /dev/zram as swap space. /dev/zram is implemented using RAM. Swapping is done by compressing/decompressing blocks and writing/reading to/from RAM not disk. The most amazing thing I have seen is that SliTaz starts out using ~70MB of RAM then as you use applications (including FireFox) it will use 600MB of RAM. However, when you exit these applications it will return to using ~70MB of RAM. I have not seen another distro that returns to the initial RAM usage. There are significant downsides: You may not be able to run normal Linux binaries. Because of MUSL you should use binaries custom built for SliTaz. If you want a new application to persists you must run a utility that rebuilds the initrd.gz which is hassle. However, if I wanted a better experience on a really old computer I would use a distro like SliTaz.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Aug 3, 2023 8:09:46 GMT
I agree with enigma9o7, AntiX is a very good distro. I actually used MX Linux (which is based on AntiX) as my daily driver for 2 years. MX uses many innovative AntiX features that I really liked. Since, Linux is completely open source, developers are free to innovate without limits. The developers at AntiX/MX Linux are quite innovative (e.g., live-usb-maker persistence feature). For sometime Linux has become the great intellectual curiosity of my life (I think of it as "The Great Rabbit Hole" - see "Linux is a MAJOR Rabbit Hole" by TechHut, [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uGS6BdmUU1c]) and beyond the practical knowledge of how to use it I have been trying to learn about its underlying technology. Innovative distros like AntiX/MX Linux are very useful in this regard as their innovations foster a better understanding of how Linux works.
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oscarb75
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Post by oscarb75 on Aug 3, 2023 15:50:31 GMT
I´ve been using Antix for six months, on an old netbook ( Celeron 1,3Ghz, 2,5GB Ram, OS on SD Card ), and it works very good. Of course, it starts to have troubles when you try to watch YT videos or you surf on "heavy" webpages. Two weeks ago, I installed Bodhi 7.0 RC, and I must say that the performance are more or less the same, and the initial boot is even faster.
No critics intended, I still believe that Antix is an amazing distro.
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berde
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Post by berde on Sept 6, 2023 9:38:02 GMT
In my opinion, with respect to lightness unconventional distros like SliTaz is in a different class from conventional distros like Bodhi. SliTaz uses some very innovative features to mitigate for the small size of RAM and the slow speed of disks. Conventional distros initially run from a filesystem in RAM disk which was uncompressed from initrd.gz then mounts and transitions to the real disk filesystem. In SliTaz the RAM disk filesystem is the filesystem - it does not transition to a disk filesystem. SliTaz replaces glibc with MUSL a more memory efficient implementation of GNU libc. SliTaz replaces hundreds of Linux binaries with a single binary /bin/busybox, e.g. /bin/init is really a link to /bin/busybox. SliTaz does not use a disk partition or disk file as swap space. It uses a special device /dev/zram as swap space. /dev/zram is implemented using RAM. Swapping is done by compressing/decompressing blocks and writing/reading to/from RAM not disk. The most amazing thing I have seen is that SliTaz starts out using ~70MB of RAM then as you use applications (including FireFox) it will use 600MB of RAM. However, when you exit these applications it will return to using ~70MB of RAM. I have not seen another distro that returns to the initial RAM usage. There are significant downsides: You may not be able to run normal Linux binaries. Because of MUSL you should use binaries custom built for SliTaz. If you want a new application to persists you must run a utility that rebuilds the initrd.gz which is hassle. However, if I wanted a better experience on a really old computer I would use a distro like SliTaz. Slitaz is very innovative but Firefox 77, Kernel 3.16 (but it does have bleeding edge Vim lol) & very neglected documentation is a no go for me.
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