What Linux Distro?

Matthew3311999

Hello, my friend has a fairly slow computer that runs windows vista extremely slow. Minecraft (a cpu intensive java game) is very laggy so I was looking into a lightweight linux distribution for his computer. It needs to be able to boot off a jumpdrive thats 4gb.

So, I tried MacPup, a very lightweight distribution, and internet and everything was about 25 times faster. But after going through the struggle of getting java the hard way, minecraft wouldn't show up. When I tried on my computer it would appear, but when i would play it would be very laggy on my computer (which normally runs it at about 200fps). So there's definitely a problem with the drivers in MacPup because I could only get the default driver, Novou, to work (when I tried to install a nvidia one from their website it would give an error about a package that was not in the repository).

The point is, I was wondering if anyone knows a lightweight linux that would fit my needs by have proprietary drivers, i think? Thanks in advanced to anyone who can answer this question.

By the way, this is some of my friend's computer's specs:

2Gb DDR2 RAM, 32 Bit processor, something around 2Ghz dual core processor, I think a NVIDIA Graphics card (that im guessing has more than 256 MB on the graphics card).

mfillpot

Pretty much any distro will work on that computer, you might want to try xubuntu or linux mint+xfce, the light weight window manager will help to lower the footprint.

tools

I would recommend either ArchBang or CrunchBang very very lightweight and in my opinion they are very easy to use

Mike Arnesen

Not my thread, but I'll be looking into ArchBang or CrunchBang. Thanks!

nixsavy

Mint + xfce is a good choice.

http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php

and

http://www.xfce.org/download

gabri_messi

Try ubuntu 12.04 is a good stability choise

dillon101001

xfce

RUNS on 256mb ram

and has java in the app store [I think]

Voaraghamanthar

The best thing is to do some research on here and balance between lightweight and the amount of support you can get. Some have better support than others. Let us know how this turns out please.

Matthew3311999

For anyone looking into it, I've found out that, though it is buggy, the best OS with support , but is lightweight would be Lubuntu, if it is run from a hard drive. If its run from a USB stick, unless you are able to allow ubuntu to boot from RAM every time, which is complicated, Macpup/puppy linux is the best of all. They run very fast, even when on a USB stick, and there still are some computers in which the graphics run well on. I was sustaining 22 fps in Minecraft with smooth lighting on an old laptop wiith 512 Mb of ddr RAM, and something like a 700 mhz processor!! That goes to show how If you can get the drivers working, Macpup is the best. otherwise, Lubuntu has more support (But for the most part, must be run on a hard drive).