Jeffrey B. Layton <> scribbled on Thursday, May 29, 2008 1:31 PM:
I use CentOS 5.1 with 256M RAM (incl X, Gnome, Firefox etc and the proprietary Nvidia 3D gfx drivers. Yes I know it's overkill, but it's so much nicer and easier to move around stuff using a file manager instead of doing it on the CLI) in a web server scenario (single family site with lots of pics). Works very well and I haven't had any problems, except for that yum maxes out the CPU (Amd Duron/750) occasionally.
This is a stationary computer, and an old one at that. Portables however have a history of being slower generally (especially older ones), so you might want to inform us on what other hw you have in yours.
XFCE is nice, fast and slick. Good choice. You might want to shut down most daemons you don't have a need for.
I've been running CentOS 5 on a P3/500 with 256M as well (It's a Best Okechobee). Works fine, but some hardware might need some tweaking. I run X, Gnome, Firefox and OpenOffice et all on this one. CentOS even found my obscure noname USB-to-Ethernet adapter too! This machine runs fine and I haven't run into anything strange or difficult to resolve. Life is good.
HTH.
I've inherited an old laptop from my wife that I'd like to use when I travel (it's fairly small with a 12" screen). The bad part is that it is maxed out on memory with 384MB. Has anyone played with using Centos5 on systems with little memory? Ideally, I don't need too much - Firefox, Openoffice, a little Perl/Python/C here and there. I was thinking about using either XFCE or Icewm as the window manager. I'd also like it to work with the existing wireless card (Dlink DWL-G650). Any thoughts or recommendations?