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Superboyac is throwing in the towel: I'm going to transition to Linux

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TaoPhoenix:
Initially I tried to use a xfce based distro, but I think the problems are deeper, I think there are other hardware conflicts going on. So I'll keep your note in mind, and see how that cross links with the "distro" itself - this whole thing of distro vs environment is kinda like a logic puzzle.

Currently I'm surfing DistroWatch under the Old Computer category, basically the same concept you were headed toward, though my next couple of distros are using other environments. Stay tuned!

mahesh2k:
Enlightenment, xfce, and Lxde are the desktop environment you should consider for the distros. Sometimes distros add a lot of stuff and make the distro very bloated. If you want super low system then puppy linux or slitaz are the perfect systems. Avoid xubuntu if you want xfce based distro because it is too bloated in terms of extra packages.

Slitaz is 30mb distro and Puppylinux is 132mb distro. You can try them if the hardware is low on resource.

Another option Trisquel which is also low on hardware and has some decent packages.

TaoPhoenix:
Right Mahesh, I tried for an xfce build earlier, but some other part of Mint was misbehaving on my comp.

Current news: Galpon MiniNo looks cute, it loaded really fast because it's clearly taking shortcuts by skipping bloat. "All I have to do" for this step is to figure out how to change languages because the default is in Spanish! : )  Also, it's asking for a Root password to do certain things but I never entered one, so that's an issue too. But I'm on my way!

Edit: I found English - it's in the installer, I just kept walking into an optical illusion of "ES" vs "EN".

Edit2: Doesn't look like any of the apps behave right. Next distro.

TaoPhoenix:
And here we go! Puppy Linux, "Racy" build for medium-older hardware, is climbing the rankings! We're at min 8/10 by this point, so that's def enough to have a contender! Sound works, flash works, I can get Hulu, I'm posting here, and there is an mp3 player, so this is my baseline comparison!

Heh - I'm getting greedy with success - I won't be ditching Windows, I have way too much stuff on my power machine, but I respect the daylights out of the Linux philosophy. So I might poke about for some kind of cool niche specialty distro, but otherwise, I broke the drought caused by the Ubuntu failures, so off I go!

Update: Having achieved the "minimum fallback" level of function with Puppy-Racy, per the post below I'm "going for the gold" on my lead Linux box with a Debian based setup. However, if I didn't break (or even lose it!) I may have a second tier laptop around that might make a good TV show/chat/DVD/Web machine that Puppy-Racy would work well on as a "third tier" machine designed to build it once and just goof off with.

TaoPhoenix:
Update:

With fingers crossed, I'm trying out (possibly partially modified) Ubuntu. Not because I think that's any great shakes, and I'm not interested in either Unity or Gnome 3, but just as an attempt to get back towards a fairly mainstream version of Debian, which I think is winning my conceptual race.

My problems with Ubuntu in the past stemmed from bad problems breaking my test box, but I just happened to notice that "P" 12.04 is the "Long Term Support" version, so I'm hoping they put a bit more care into it for once. I'm not demanding on my OS requirements, I really am not - I don't use Wifi and I don't print at home, (two of the more notorious funny spots in Linux), so if I were speaking to an anthromorphized OS, "Please just give me a stable picture and sound and play Flash videos and mp3's and radio channels, K? ThxBye."

Then I have to remember NOT to upgrade - (Ubuntu's October editions are a bit more skewed to have silliness). I'll just hunker down and wait for the next LTS. And maybe it will just sit there if the hardware finally proves too old. (Though I don't think I'm being unreasonable, a 2007 era Best Buy Pentium-4 Compaq box with an nvidia card isn't exactly third world obscurity, which is why I became grumpy last time when whatever edition it was of Ubuntu broke it and it quit booting.)  

I'll save for another day whether I prefer LXDE or XFCE for the front end window, vs software available, but the overall point is that my Boot problems occurred really early on in my prior bad experiences, so once the comp boots, solving point #1, then it's just down to any of 2-3 window environments that are Non-Unity. Then once I get it working I'll just leave it alone, because it seems to be a shade brittle on the specs side, and endless tinkering will likely break it again. (4 distros this weekend failed to boot.)

I really only do like 10 things in the OS level, so a simple window manager should be fine. I went with Debian-based though because I like innovative apps, and I'm curious at all the nook and cranny stuff out there once I get the OS side solved.

So I'm almost done with my survey.

Edit: My mouse pointer died during the upgrade from a sub-distro to 12.04. So I am down to a couple of steps left. 1a. Fresh CD of Lubuntu 1b. Fresh CD of Xubuntu, to test out those two desk environs. 2. Stick with the Zorin sub-distro that did load, and then bide my time for them to patch up a Pagolin edition to fix what Canonical can't seem to do on my lead linux machine.

Edit2: Mashed keys and fiddled with Tab, got past that particular dialog box.

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