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Author Topic: Do you guess my hardware is too old and slow?  (Read 1927 times)

Offline fredand44

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Do you guess my hardware is too old and slow?
« on: January 12, 2012, 01:14:40 PM »
Hello Guys!

My goal was to install a small Linux dist to use for web-browsing that supports Flash on a old computer that I still have not retire!

My best luck so far was with CorePlus.

How ever my hardware is a old laptop Dell Inspiron  3800 128MB RAM, 500Mhz CPU.

I must say that after the install of getFlash11 it became really really, (super really) slow and my guess is that the hardware is the limit.

What do you think guys, will my computer be better off in computer heaven or could I tweak CorePlus, Opera and Flash run to well on this hardware?

Best regards
Fredrik

Offline bmarkus

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Re: Do you guess my hardware is too old and slow?
« Reply #1 on: January 12, 2012, 01:19:55 PM »
It can be used for many purposes, if you accept its probably high energy consumption. But you have to forget modern browsers with flash specially due to low memory. Try to update RAM (probably higher limit is 512M). In case of Linux extra RAM can make miracles. Maybe not enough for flash :(
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Offline curaga

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Re: Do you guess my hardware is too old and slow?
« Reply #2 on: January 12, 2012, 01:31:46 PM »
The hw is good for many things, but not Flash really. No matter the distro Flash itself is too heavy.
The only barriers that can stop you are the ones you create yourself.

Offline Rich

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Re: Do you guess my hardware is too old and slow?
« Reply #3 on: January 12, 2012, 02:08:38 PM »
Hi fredand44
You can also try to adjust your browser settings to free up some RAM, which might help a little.
Knock the  history cache  down to 5Mb, or turn it off altogether. Don't install any extra plug-ins.
Try Googling for other ways to decrease your browsers footprint.
Making your  /home  and  /opt  persistent will get them out of RAM.
Creating a swap partition and using that instead of zswap might also help some.
Don't expect any miracles, the best you can hope to do is to make  Flash  a little more bearable,
especially if you can't add any more RAM.

Offline floppy

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Re: Do you guess my hardware is too old and slow?
« Reply #4 on: January 14, 2012, 04:58:23 PM »
hello fredand44,
see my signature. my processor is similar to your.
Put RAM (my experience). I had originally 64MB and putted later 3x256MB (too much).
I could give you 256MB if you are in Stuttgart (then test it and keep it if it runs).
By observing my RAM usage I would say that 512 is enough.
256MB + a bit swap perhaps the minimum.
AMD K6-IIIATZ 550MHz MB DFI K6xv3/+66
P4 HP DC7100 3GB 3GHz
Samsung NC10 boot from SD card port (via USB reader)
.. all TinyCore proofed