I have a 12-year old Toshiba Libretto laptop with a Transmeta Crusoe Processor TM 5600 running at about 600 MHz, 128 MB RAM and S3 Savage graphics. Which Ubuntu (or any other GNU/Linux based OS) could I use for stable operation?
I intend to use the laptop for basic computing needs including surfing and Skype without video.
Lubuntu would be my first choice. It would run great on it. It uses the extremely lightweight and fast LXDE desktop and it is made to run fast on very old computers. Puppy Linux would also run very fast as well.
Bodhi linux is worth trying out, your system requirements are met and you'll get a modern dektop (with an olden day footprint). It's Ubuntu-based and runs on the Enlightenment DE (which, debatably, is even more lightweight that LXDE).
It can look however you want it to look, it's very easy to change the theme and look of the desktop from within menus.
Debian still officially supports running on a 486 (but not a 386).
Everything else about which desktop environments and window managers to use on an older system has almost nothing to do with the distro choice.
Puppy Linux: Wary is great for older hardware.
Any distribution that avoids installing a heavyweight window manager will do nicely. For maximum choice, Debian will be fine on an older system. Your real decision is which window manager to use. I was using FVWM on a laptop made in 1996 and it was plenty fast enough. More modern "lightweight" window managers are probably also appropriate.
ArchLinux is a very good, rolling release, minimalistic distribution. You get a minimal install CD, and install what you want on top of that; it is possible to make it extremely lightweight and fast.
I run it on pretty much everything I have, from old systems like yours to the newest, and it is really fast on all; I would wholeheartedly recommend it.
I think VectorLinux is missing in the list of suggestions. It was desgined to run on low ressources. I used it some years ago and liked it.
Quote from Wikipedia: "The Light Edition is designed for older computers with limited hard disk space."
EDIT: Distrowatch lets you search for distributions, one of the features is called "Old Computers". Today there were 18 hits of active distributions matching:
Maybe Damn Small Linux would suit your needs?
Definitly keep off KDE and Gnome, maybe Xfce and LXDE are choices, but I guess a very simple VM/DE like IceWM would be the way to go.
Although I had SuSE 9.1 with KDE running on a computer that had some Pentium 2 or 3 with 128 MB. It just wasn't any real fun.
600 Mhz is fine, but can you get more RAM? If you can put 256 or even 512 MB into the thing - it shouldn't be expensive, but does the hardware detect it? And with 512, xubuntu is waiting. :) Or the other alternatives, mentioned. But RAM, RAM, RAM.
Don't look for a distro or a subdistro, look instead for tools to use to do what you want to do, and then check if you can run all these in that computer. You should detail what are the "basic needs" you will focus on. E.g., if you want to focus on WYSIWYG "office suite" document editing, then you're advised to try something lighter than LibreOffice (although if you don't open another memory-hungry application, I think you will manage to run libo).
If you want web browsing, you should see if you can get a lightweight browser. If you don't rely too much on dynamic AJAX-bloated sites and you really surf HTML, there are some choices out there, ranging from dillo to lynx.
(But Firefox should be able to run too — but unless they managed to get rid of the leaks, you have to restart it once in a while, also be sure to disable any overkill eye-candy and to disable scripts and plugins unless they're really needed (NoScript and Adblock or the like will be handy here).)
Your main bottleneck is, definitely, RAM. Try to get some more RAM if you want to run something heavier. Also, try using a fast hard drive for the swap partition.
CPU speed won't mean a lot unless you're going to do intensive computation, compilation, image processing, etc., or unless you choose a source-based distro (and, curiously, the bottleneck with source-based distros will be RAM, not CPU).
The choice of distro is meaningless as soon as you pick the tools you want to use. Of course, if some distro forces you to go through a default installation of KDE running firefox with thousand background processes to provide "automagic" behavior, then you will have some trouble setting it up.
I guess the best choice is, whatever distro you pick, check whether you have to use some special option to pick the packages and install the most minimalist system you can conceive, then install pieces as you find out you need them.
(A good generic tip would be: stay away from DEs (Desktop Environments) -- a window manager suffices to get, well, window management. But I guess whether you can get rid of some of the things DEs give you depends on how you work and on your tastes.)
If you really want Ubunu... then I'd say 7.04. The first Linux distro I ever used was Edubuntu (in those days still a seperate distro) 7.04 and I really liked it. Everything worked much better than it does with the newer releases, except that wireless networking was disastreous (no drivers :'-(). Pitty it doesn't seem to boot anymore on newer PC's.
I was on a similar quest recently, and after trying different Ubuntu variants, Puppy and DSL, my personal choice is PCLinuxOS.
The base distributive uses KDE, but it has variants with Enlightenment, LXDE, XFCE, and Gnome. KDE, Gnome and Enlightenment would be too "heavy" for your laptop, but both LXDE and XFCE will work great. I think PCLinuxOS has better organized configuration and management tools then Ubuntu, clearer ways to configure everything, more stuff works right "out of the box".
I am running Xubuntu with good success on a similar system. I generally load into the fluxbox window manager. You don't get a fancy desktop but it saves a lot of RAM and it is really easy to use.
Don't have any illusions about what you are doing here though. I can do most everything that I want to do on this box but it has its limitations. For example, if Pandora is playing she aint gonna do much more that simple command line tasks. Also some .pdf files can take minutes to open. RAM is your biggest limitation so you will be forced to think ahead if you need to run multiple applications.
P.S. I am also running TinyCore off of a 4 Gig USB drive on a MacBook Pro that has more RAM to be sure but no HD. This would work great but is a lot more hassle.
I tried Slitaz (Distrowatch page) and it worked really well for me. It is extremely fast on old machines, with very active community, plus it takes less then 100MB disk space.
ALT Antique (several versions of the installation images) might be OK for your requirements; the description is though in the form of a discussion of the creators of the distro in Russian.
In general, it is just based on Sisyphus, a general-purpose constantly developped repository of packages/basis for distros&solutions.
(Further question should be probably addressed to the creators, not me, because I'm not even a user of their project, but perhaps I will try it some day on an old Toshiba laptop.)
I am in the same situation: Sony C1 MSX with tranmeta crusoe tm5800 800mhz.
I tried windows xp SP1: Very good but sp2 and sp3= game over => Cannot get firefox or other navigator running well. I tried Lubuntu: Game over (very slow) I tried Xubuntu: Incredibly slow, had to unplug the machine to stop it I tried Puppy Linux Lucid 5.2.8: That start to be heavy for this machine, however it's quite usable. Opera and Midori works incredibly well on it.
Next step Puppy Linux Warry 5.2.2. Maybe i ll let you know (I am not familiar with this forum)
The issue with the Crusoe processor, is that it's not reactive. When it runs it run fast, but it has difficulties to start. Particularly when working on battery.
Use Linux Mint based on LXDE. It's very light and user friendly, based on Ubuntu, so all software is easily available. I think that 128Mbs is enough for it, you can't use GNOME or KDE with only 128Mb.
However I'm not sure if that hardware is supported, but even then Mint is a good choice for a test, just use liveCD or liveUSB.
