Very Computer

Hi,
    I heard that there was a small X-Windows that could be used
on systems with low computer resources. I inherited a
Compaq Contura 486 laptop with 4mb ram and about 528mb hd.
I was hoping to find a version of X-Windows that will run on it. It has
a black and white screen.
                                                            Thanks
                                                                    Mike

Haven't tried this one personally, but check freshmeat and I'm sure it
shoud be there.  It's called 'twin' for 't'ext 'win'dow manager.  It is
supposedly kinda like X but using a curses-based screen.  Otherwise,
almost every linux distro comes w/ twm (It installs by default w/
XFree86, I think), which is about as bare bones as it gets.  Next, I'd
look at something like fvwm, which again comes w/ most default installs,
whether you want it or not ;)  It is old, at least relative to kde and
gnome, but it does work a lot better on minimal hardware.  I had finally
evangelized linux enough that our local IS person, and our meter tech
(her backup admin), were letting me install Linux-Mandrake on a spare
P-90 w/ 16M ram for a beater platform, since our new SCADA system ran on
HPUX, and they didn't want people learning for the first time on a
production system and CDE.  KDE absolutely crawled, and eventually
locked up the system.  Gnome wasn't really any better.  Talk about egg
on one's face.  Yuck!  Later, I tried fvwm95, and it ran like a champ.
XFCE and IceWM (lean, but mostly gnome-compliant) worked pretty well.
Oh, now that I think of it, there is another minimalist windowmanagaer
out there that might work-- wm2.  Again, pretty bare bones.

Monte

P.S. before you ask me for help setting up any of these minimalist
windowmanagers, I must mention that my 'leanest' systems have a minimum
of 64MB RAM, and my desktop that I use day to day has 384MB.  So 'lean'
to me (IceWM and XFCE) is probably piggy to you.  For me, wm2 and fvwm,
are insanely fast, but butt-ugly and not very friendly. YMMV.

First of all, there is a 4MB-Laptop-Mini-HOWTO. Sound perfect :-)

Quote:>> I was hoping to find a version of X-Windows that will run on it. It has
>> a black and white screen.

There are some mini-X distributions out there.
They are basically taking the most minimal amount of the standard
X distribution and putting it together.
It *may* be X11R5 (i.e. Xfree2.X, an older version of X11),
which *may* be enough for what you are planing.
I am not aware of a tuned X server itself.

Then there are some projects (look on freshmeat, linuxlinks, metalab
and which ever your favorite source is), that go for a
"not so bloated GUI" :
wisio, nanoX, Yax, microwindows (I think 2 of them merged).
And then there is MGR, which is kind of dated.
But I used MGR for my old 386 with a 256k VGA card.
X was just not going anywhere on that.

Quote:>Haven't tried this one personally, but check freshmeat and I'm sure it
>shoud be there.  It's called 'twin' for 't'ext 'win'dow manager.  It is
>supposedly kinda like X but using a curses-based screen.  Otherwise,

Yep, that's a cool thing, too :-)
Generally, all these things have some kind of terminal
program, so you can use all console based applications.
Twin's terminal emulations seems to be pretty decent.

Quote:>almost every linux distro comes w/ twm (It installs by default w/
>XFree86, I think), which is about as bare bones as it gets.  Next, I'd
>look at something like fvwm, which again comes w/ most default installs,

Now, if you run X, yes, then get a lean window manager.
The smallest one I used was lwm :-) that has nothing whatsoever ...
somehow like wm2. Both I like, btw :-) but then I also like
Enlightenment - but you don't want that on your poor Laptop.

Andreas

--
                       Andreas Schweitzer
             http://dilbert.physast.uga.edu/~andy/
        This post is brought to you by VIM, slrn and FreeBSD

Take a look at

http://smalllinux.netpedia.net/

It claims X windows in 4 MB. Linux and X windows in 4 MB will be tight,
though, and won't likely leave much memory for running other things.

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