Ok, so my Dad has finally given up his old laptop, which gives me the chance to play with Linux on it. The only problem is, the hard drive is minute. He estimates it to be 1.2 gigs :\ but it was a long time since he really last checked it, so it could be more..

Basicly, just give me the smallest Linux Distro you know and I'll start my weary job of downloading it....

(I will update this thread if the hard drive is more and I have no need to worry...)

Disk space requirements range from 400mb to 6GB depending on which distro you use and how many modules/extras you put on.


You can get distros from here I quite like
Suse.

I would think you'd struggle with 1.2gig hard disk though.

Hello,

With 1.2 GB, you will be hard pressed to install *everything*. Where you go will depend on what you want the computer to do. Since it is a laptop with limited space, I would suggest the following:

256 MB SWAP partition
/var 300 MB partition (this is where the logs are kept, and will prevent logs overwriting the main volume
/ partition with the rest.

Avoid --
* don't need FTP / WEB / NEWS / MAIL server software
* If you can squeeze the compilers in, do it.
* Choose one X manger -- GNOME or KDE. I prefer GNOME for simplicity... KDE is great if you want more bells and whistles on desktop
* Don't need to install source trees if you don't have compliers
* Choose one set of office programs -- either KOffice or Open Office, not both

You can also consider an older Linux distro, such as RedHat 7.3. With your laptop only having a 1.2 GB hard drive, you might also have RAM restrictions. I know RH 9 wants 64 MB RAM for starters, and the RH 7.3 only needs 24 MB. Might want to consider going older distro, so that it is smaller (although less features), but more efficient as the software would closer match the hardware (in terms of year of release).

Christian

Well it turns out theres actually 2 gigs of space. Right now im downloading SUSE 9.1 Personal which is about 600 megs. I have about 128 megs of RAM which should do, but if I have any probs I'll post here again. Wish me luck :/

slackware 10. just dont install everything and it should fit perfectly all you have to do is not install all the server stuff like apache, mysql and a bunch of others

Running GNOME and / or KDE on that laptop isn't going to be very fun. I'd suggest something more lightweight like XFCE if you have to have a window manager. Even then the X server itself is going to kill you on space. Anyway, if the harddrive space is such, I can only imagine how slow the processor, I/O bus, and memory are.

ok ok im taking all this in. Im still looking around.

When I do find an iso, how much will it expand by. SUSE Personal iso is about 600megs, but im sure that space will expand when it is installed. Any idea how much?

I dont recomend giving var its own paritition it tends to cause alot of probelms.

er, what do you mean by var :o

Hello,

Do you mean /var as it's own partition? That is what you want, actually! Your log files and other variable information will go into /var, and an out of control log can fill that volume before you get a chance to repair it. No computers like it when the root volume fills up on the hard drive. Errors galore. Give /var her own sizable partition if you can!

I have had Linux in the field for years, and have always had /var separated. Not a problem.

Also -- an .iso image is meant to be burnt onto a CD-ROM, and from there you will use that disk during the installation. I have heard of people installing from a hard drive to a hard drive, but I don't think that is what you are trying to do. Typically, the .iso image is going to be anywhere from 600M - 640M or so. That size should not be counted towards the installation size -- the pieces of the OS on that .iso image are compressed, and not configured for "realtime" use.

Christian