> Most people want a Linux install to be similar to the other two of the
> top three OS's out there ( Mac and Win ).
I think that most people would have lowered expectations for older
hardware like a 3400. According to lowendmac.com, the 3400 maxes out
at 144MB of RAM (16 on board, 128 added), so throwing RAM at it only
gets you so far. But max out the RAM if you can.
I have an even slower laptop (NEC Ultra) that runs Debian. It's a
Pentium 100, maxed out at 40MB RAM, and has a 1.2GB hard drive. A
3400 should be about twice as fast, and perhaps faster with an
adequate amount of RAM in it. KDE or Gnome would still run like a
slug, but it would feel speedy using WindowMaker or AfterStep (or
FVWM). I use FVWM2 on the NEC.
While the hard drive has about 200MB free, I would recommend going
with a larger hard drive if at all possible. A range of 3GB to 5GB
would probably be adequate, unless you keep lots of music on it or
use it for audio editing or something like that. If you use a laptop
much, you'll know how easy it is to just put the thing to sleep and
have everything waiting for you when you wake it up the next day --
meaning you'll be reluctant to close apps, meaning you'll want lots
of swap space. I set up the NEC with 128MB of swap; double that if
you can.
Bottom line, there's no such thing as a free laptop. Personally,
I think it's worth the effort if you can spend less than $150 or
so to get it going (batteries are probably dead on a system that
old unless they've been replaced recently, don't forget to factor
that in). If you've not used a laptop before, you might find it
changes how you use a computer -- for me, the NEC was gateway drug
that got me to get myself an iBook.
--
Larry Kollar, Senior Technical Writer, ARRIS
"Content creators are the engine that drives
value in the information life cycle."
-- Barry Schaeffer, on XML-Doc
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