Ubuntu

Do I need to upgrade to Pentium 3 or 4?

Asked by De Silva

I have successfully installed Ubuntu (on safe graphic mode) on my PC with Pentium 2 (350), with 312 RAM and 40 GB hrad drive. It has no other operating systems. The system is very slow and freezes at times. I gathered that I need about 324 RAM to run it. My system allows me to upgrade the system up to 712 RAM. What is my best option? Will the upgrade of RAM help? Or do I really need a faster CPU? On the advice of other answers, I did install Xbuntu but had similar problem. Any advice please.

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Jerry Schaefer
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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#1

Hello

This link should give you an idea..

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements

Personally I have 3 systems running ubuntu

1. P3 1.2 Ghz 512 MB RAM Onboard Graphics
2. P4 2.4 Ghz 640MB RAM Onboard Intel Graphics
3. Pentium D (Dual Core) 1 GB RAM Onboard Intel Graphics

and ubuntu is running fine

I suggest you to upgrade your computer to pentium 4 with 512MB RAM and ubuntu should work fine

If your budget permits I suggest you to for a latest Core2Duo system with 512MB/1 GB of RAM and ubuntu will run like a rocket..

Bhavani Shankar.

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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#2

Or since your system is old upgrade your RAM and install xubuntu (I had a pentium 2 400 Mhz with 512MB RAM and it was running fine) Recently in april last year I traded it off.. Any of your choice..

Hope the info helps

Bhavani Shankar.

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De Silva (l-desilva) said : 		#3

Thanks Bhavani. I do not think that my system motherboard will support pentium 4. The manufactures book says that it "is prepared for future releases of 450 and 500 MHz CPUs.". it "supports 66.6 and 100 MHz clock speeds.
Therefore I am planning to upgrade memory to 500 ram within next few days and run Xbuntu and see what happens.
I am quite new to all this. But I must say that whole thing has been quite fun. Thanks very much again for all this advice.
Lalith

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Bhavani Shankar (bhavi) said : 		#4

Yes Pentium 2 Motherboards donot support Pentium 4.. Upgrade your memory to 512 MB and try out xubuntu.. As a tip to avoid system getting stuck the swap partition should be twice as the size of your physical RAM.. To ensure smooth running of applications..

Have a try and let me know how it goes..

Bhavani Shankar.

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De Silva (l-desilva) said : 		#5

Thanks Bhavani. I am waiting for RAM to arrive in post!. It should be here in few days. I will read about what you mean by swap partition. I was using the entire clean hard disk for Ubuntu and therefore did not partition the disk. Thanks again for all your advice.
Lalith

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Qwerty Maniac (qwertymaniac) said : 		#6

You could alternatively use a lighter Linux flavor like Slackware or DSL or even Gentoo.

If you'd like only Ubuntu, do try an older version rather than the latest which would of course be high on its requirements.

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Best Jerry Schaefer (gschaefr) said : 		#7

Hi,

Ubuntu would automatically partition your disk during the install, unless you opted to do it manually.
It creates an ext3 main partition and a swap partition. If you want control over the size, partition it
manually. Parted is fairly easy to use. I'm pretty green, but have done it several times myself.

As to your processor speed, I ran Ubuntu 6.10 on my P2/233 with 256 MB with no problems. When
I got a chance to upgrade last April to a different motherboard and 466 for under $20, I upgraded.

Depending on what you want to do with it, you don't need a lot of speed with Ubuntu, as it's not like
Windoze XP, which has almost 50 processes running in the background. Ubuntu is pretty lean if it
will run in 128 MB. It mostly uses the swap partition to roll parts of itself out when it needs more RAM.

It's hard to find 72-pin RAM in large sizes, but if you're using 168-pin, the 128 MB sticks are available
used for about $5. As the old saying goes, "Memory's cheap. Get enough." Good luck, and have fun.

Jerry

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De Silva (l-desilva) said : 		#8

Thanks Jerry. That is a very helpful answer. I will upgrade memory to 500MB and install it gain with partition. Can any one suggest me how to get older version (say 6.10) Ubuntu ?
Lalith

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De Silva (l-desilva) said : 		#9

Thanks everyone. I found earlier version of Ubuntu.
Lalith

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De Silva (l-desilva) said : 		#10

Thanks Jerry Schaefer, that solved my question.