[ILUG] Minimal Desktop / Workstation Install

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Breathnach, Proinnsias (Dublin) (breatpro at exchange.ie.ml.com):

> I've been asked to look at setting up a number of linux workstations as a
> pilot project here ... the catch is that the "test" machines are 64MB P133s
> with 2GB hard-drives (SCSI), and I've got to showcase RH 7.2 on them !!
> 
> What's the easiest, minimal install possible for these considering it'll be
> done by FTP ?
> 
> I'm looking for a basic office desktop, something that'll run OpenOffice (I
> know it'll be slow) and either KDE or Gnome desktops ... there doesn't need
> to be anything deep under the surface ...
> 
> Any suggestions ?

Yes:  Get real.  Stop talking nonsense.

OpenOffice.org was sluggish but _barely_ tolerable before I doubled the
initial 64kB of RAM in my antique P233 laptop.  But it was barely
tolerable _only_ because I run Window Maker, and dispense with the 
vast amount of cruft that both the KDE and GNOME desktops load into
RAM.

With 128kB of RAM in the machine, _still_ running a deliberately sparse 
set of running processes, OpenOffice.org remains slow to load but is
quite tolerable.

Slow down that processor to 133 MHz, take out half the RAM, and
overburden the remaining RAM with KDE or GNOME tchochkes, and
OpenOffice.org won't even walk briskly, let alone run.

If you can't negotiate a more reasonable set of test conditions, then
say _no_.  

Personally, I think you could get almost reasonable performance with the
indicated hardware and a suitable, pleasant software environment better
suited to low-RAM machines -- based on Window Maker, Blackbox, Sawfish,
icewm, etc., but choose your own poison.  That was exactly what we did
with that exact class of machine at The CoffeeNet (site mirror at:
http://linuxmafia.com/coffeenet/ ).  Except most of those machines had
_32MB_ of RAM, and we used fvwm2.

-- 
Cheers,      "On the face of it, Microsoft complaining about the source license 
Rick Moen    used by Linux is like the event horizon calling the kettle black."
rick at linuxmafia.com             -- Adam Barr, former Microsoft Corp. programmer