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[ManWithShed]

I found this site yesterday and have decided to give wattOS a try on an old Windows 2000 PC I have that was about to take a one-way trip to the recycling centre.  As it is pretty low-spec -- 256Mb RAM, 800Mhz PIII, 20Gb disk -- I decided to install the 32bit Microwatt distro. 

First time round I ticked the 'download upgrades' and 'Use VLM' boxes.  After 4 hours the installation crashed. So, I tried again, but this time left the boxes un-ticked. The next installation took an hour and has just finished.  At first sight everything is now OK, so maybe there is a compatibility issue with the updates or a VLM issue.

I am off to have a play now.  I am new to Linux so I have got some learning to do.  First off I plan to install Python and Geany.  Is this OK to do under this distro, or should I have gone for the LXDE version?

[teejay]

Welcome to the wattOS community.
I can well understand having W2K on a P3-800 - plenty good years there !
No reason to avoid Python or Geany on microwatt - Biff has said he does his daily development work using microwatt, so LXDE is obviously not a requirement.  (He does have more cpu power, though.)    Plus the i3 interface was designed by programmers for themselves, so you can expect it to work efficiently in that activity. 
Your question about installs will probably bring more answers, but my experience is that the instal works best with no encryption, no instant downloads (post-install updating works well), etc  In short, basic initial installs for lower-spec machines. 

If your PC's motherboard will accept more than 256MB, then I suggest you add more RAM.  512 is probably a practical minimum for LXDE and for browsing ... and maybe for larger programming tasks.   Should be inexpensive.     (I'm aware that many P3 mobos top out at 512, but I think 256 limit belongs to Celerons of the P2 class.)

Hope your first play with wattOS  went well.

[blaze]

Welcome to watt forums ManWithShed. Nice to hear that you got things working for you. And as teejay suggested, a little bit more RAM would be very practical. Good luck and please keep us updated of how it works out for you. 

[ManWithShed]

Thanks for the welcome messages guys. 

My first play was to run a software update as described in the readme file --- it took less than a minute and seems to have worked fine. I also installed the printer support, but haven't pursued that any further.  My printer is network connected, so I may need to do a little work here.  It turned out I already had Python, so I just added Geany using the package manager.  That's it so far.  My biggest challenge now will be finding the desk space for the 17 inch CRT monitor that's part of the system.  The home-made bench in my den is fairly shallow front to back as it was made with flat screens in mind!

I'll take on-board the comments about RAM.  The system only had 128Mb when it came out of the attic, but I managed to rescue another 128Mb SIMM from an old server that was also heading for the recyclers. I will have to see if I can scrounge some 256Mb SIMMS from somewhere as the board only has 2 slots.  I could buy some, but this is supposed to be an exercise in re-use and recycling, so that would defeat the object somewhat.

[ManWithShed]

I have just discovered that s/h 256Mb modules (the largest my system will take) are pretty cheap on ebay, so maybe I will take the plunge.

[blaze]

I am all for re-use and recycling. With some additional RAM your computer will be much more usable. Otherwise it will be quite slow, especially while browsing the web. Good luck!  

[ManWithShed]

I have now installed and tested 512Mb of pre-enjoyed RAM from ebay and general browsing of sites like Amazon and PlanetWatt is a lot slicker.  However, attempts to display the home pages for ebay and YouTube just cause the browser (Minori) to crash and dump me back to the green screen.  I guess YouTube might need plug-ins I haven't got, but I can't think why ebay.co.uk's home page might be an issue.  Has anybody else had this problem?

[blaze]

You mean Midori? Tried it once and it crashed a lot for me. My suggestion is that you try out some other lightweight browsers too. They might have some limitations when browsing though. You just have to find which suits you the best. Dillo is nice in my opinion, somewhat limited but works quite well. Google around and you shall find.

[leenie]

QupZilla is a very light browser. Get it here: http://www.qupzilla.com/download
When you click the Ubuntu icon you will see instructions for install.

[ManWithShed]

Thanks for the pointers. I'll give one (or both) a try.

[blaze]

Sorry for interrupting again  I have never tried it, but it might be worth a try.

http://www.netsurf-browser.org/

[teejay]

Just so you're spoilt for options ......
Chromium browser is unlikely to crash on regular websites. 
By design, Chromium is  lightweight and fast
Caveat 1 :  those terms might be only relative to mainstream browsers including Google's product Chrome, which is built on Chromium code and carries somewhat more baggage. 
Caveat 2 : Chromium has been growing in size, and might not work slickly in 512 these days   

[ManWithShed]

Phew... thanks folks.  Plenty to keep me busy here. 

This whole exercise is primarily to help get me up to speed on Linux, so it won't be a disaster if I don't end up with a system that's particularly useful providing I have learned plenty.

[blaze]

^That is a  spirit!