[mdlug] Speedy Older Pentium 3 on openSUSE 11.1

[Peter Bart]

On Sun, 2009-11-08 at 11:16 -0500, Al Fuller wrote:
> Peter:
> 
> In looking at your post, I think I will try to revive an older laptop
> myself!  I'm new to Linux and have a question - I've already downloaded
> OpenSuse 11.1 and burned a disc.  
>  - Is there any special process to use to load xfce as the window manager,
> as opposed to something heavier?
> 
> Thanks in advance!!
> 
> Al Fuller
> al at bighealey.org
> '62 BT-7
> '65 BJ-8
> '85 Rx-7
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: mdlug-bounces at mdlug.org [mailto:mdlug-bounces at mdlug.org] On Behalf Of
> Peter Bart
> Sent: Saturday, September 05, 2009 3:19 PM
> To: MDLUG Main List
> Subject: [mdlug] Speedy Older Pentium 3 on openSUSE 11.1
> 
> Hello Everyone,
> 	Since Ray's post about setting up a webcam controlled by Motion, I
> thought I'd give it a try. First step was to dust off an old T22
> Thinkpad I still have, a Pentium 3. After several failed downloads/burns
> of Ubuntu 8.04, I thought about giving openSUSE; with xfce as window
> manager, a try. I remember hearing one of the Ray's mention that an
> option for older and slower systems is to use a lighter weight window
> manager with the latest distro. I should be able to compile and install
> Motion from source, hopefully. Boy howdy, was he ever right. The old
> Pentium 3 T22 boots and logs me in quicker than my dual core 2ghz T61
> can get me into the land of Gnome, with a fingerprint scanner! Now, I
> still have to get some camera's, and other assorted stuff. Eventually
> I'd like to build a machine for use with LinuxMCE, but for now I can buy
> an cheapo web cam to play with.
> 
> Best Regards,

	Nothing special, select XFCE when asked which window manager you would
like. Other than that, the defaults should be fine. Once you get the
hang of it, openSUSE allows a lot of customization. I did find out that
XFCE does not allow a user to suspend, hibernate or shut down. Only root
can do that. I did find several workarounds for that, but did not yet
try them out. If I remember, XFCE does this on purpose. I'll have to get
it out myself again. Good luck.

-- 
Peter Bart <peter at petertheplumber.net>
Peter The Plumber