I love this notebook, still love. but its lack of upgradable, too slow, limited of memory (128 – 16 MB) always make me sick of it.
normally it came with Windows XP home custom edition but still too lack to do many things for me at that time (7 years ago or more than that)
so I installed Windows XP Pro and customized it as best as I can, but it’s slowness always make me sick also.
Once, installed Windows 98: it’s going well but only the problems that Windows 98 cannot support best on more than 2 language systems, that I needed on that time.
So need to switch back to XP again.
Yesterday I tried to installed Ubuntu 9.04 to that PC; it’s work ok but too slow. slower than Windows XP; and that’s the worst of all.
as now I have 2 solutions; try other distros: like puppy linux or tinyme, or configuring this ubuntu.
For me now I think about trying HP mie, I just wanna know how fast of the out of the box solution can this machine be, before configuration.
Wish it works well…
Related posts:
You should use Xubuntu, not Ubuntu on a machine of these specifications. It will work fine. It is based on Ubuntu and still has the same great underlying OS, support and updates, but is much easier on hardware resources.
http://www.xubuntu.org/
[...] So need to switch back to XP again. Yesterday I tried to installed Ubuntu 9.04 to that PC; it’s work ok but too slow. slower than Windows XP; and that’s the worse of all. More here [...]
slower than XP?
I find this almost impossible to believe.
How did you install it?
wubi?
or are you running off the live CD?
I apologize…I did read the post…just the headline.
Puppy linux will fly on your computer…however, you might just want to run it from the CD. Some installs get funky with GRUB and you are left with an un-bootable computer.
Slower than XP? I’ve been fussing with my Fujitsu LifeBook P1120 w/ 256 Mb of RAM for a long time trying to find something that runs (not walks) on it. I can’t believe that the P1120 has a “Designed for Windows XP” sticker on it in the first place! Granted, it worked pretty well when it was brand new but eventually slowed to an agonizing crawl in spite of my obsession with software maintenance.
To compound the issue, this lappy will not boot from anything but the HD so I had to look pretty hard before I leapt. In fact, in order to install a distro, I have to remove the HD from the P1120, install it in another lappy and run the liveCD installation. Once the system is ready for the first reboot, I remove the HD and stick it in the P1120 to finish it up. So far, I’ve tried Debian, Kubuntu, Ubuntu and finally settled on Xubuntu.
IMO, forget abut Puppy Linux and Damn Small Linux, I tried them both on an old ThinkPad and the HD installation was an incomprehensible mess (I never really succeeded and gave up). If you want to try to run them from a CD or USB, that’s your prerogative but my P1120 doesn’t have a CD drive, won’t boot with an external USB or PCMCIA CD drive (except some mythical Fujitsu CD drive) or a normal USB drive.
Bottom line is that you should be looking at any distro with the Xfce windows manager. There’s no doubt that it runs better on the P1120 than KDE or Gnome. It’s still slow, but useful after careful configuration of startup sessions and services.
I sincerely hope that I can spare you some of the pain that I’ve had in my mission to extend the life of my favorite little lappy!
thank for your kindly advice;
this machine cannot boot from cd or usb flash drive; has to pick the hdd to boot with other PC;
the progress;
thank for deralaand’s advice; but i cannot run it by CD.
thank for Mo Kraak’s advice; I tried download Xubuntu, but still no time on plug the harddrive to the PC yet, still many work to do. I will try your advice; btw, any advice for the configuration.
Try fluxbox, but you need to follow these steps, i did so on mine to a certain point. You can boot a USB by using a floppy. (ie. DamnSmallLinux floppy to USB) it is in there wiki. I was wondering if there was a universal floppy to boot any USB
http://www.go2linux.org/installing-a-light-linux-operating-system-debian-fluxbox
i have a fujitsu lifebook p-1030 at the bottom of my drawer … don’t really know what to do with it … it is just too slow and not ungradable for any decent usage … the experience is just horrible and these days, i advise all my friends to stay out of buying their laptops … their machines have the look but poorly designed inside … Fujitsu should offer to swap them for some of their newer generation lifebooks, even not necessary the most uptodate ones, for a discount …