I started using a Dell OptiPlex GX150 (124 MB RAM, 10 GB HDD)
from Oct 2006. My main machine, ThinkPad X31,
broke in Sept 2006 and I had to use the old machine with the small RAM
for the IBM. Dual-booting between Windows 98 and Kubuntu 5.10 may not
sound nice in 2006. But it works for working on text files (tex, html
also openoffice.org). I also tried to install Debian GNU Linux
(woody, sarge and etch). The Debian CDs, however, caused many problems
to set up X11 as they don't seem to handle the transition from
x-windows-system and xserver-xfree86 to xorg well (Sept 2006). Kubuntu
is great as they manage the X11 and desktop issues very well. I
also installed Xface4, which you can easily install from Ubuntu apt
sources and select Kde or Xfce4 for the desktop according to my purposes. I didn't
have any problems during the whole installation.
Important things to install Kubuntu 5.10 to the GX 150 were how you
partition the HDD. I used Gnome Partition Editor to partition the HDD (10 GB). As Windows
98 already takes up about 4.0 GB in the drive, I could allocate about
3.4 GB for Linux. Kubuntu 5.10 itself takes up 2 GB (1.7 GB for
kubuntu including xfce4 desktop; 300 MB other packages, pTeX, emacs,
Firefox and 250 MB linux swap). Because the space for the linux is
very tight, I did not make partitions for /home, /usr, /var, /tmp etc
(For my current partitions, click Here). I have about 3.3 GB ( 1.2
GB for the C drive and 1.1 GB for the E dirve in Windows 98 and 1 GB
for Linux) for free spaces after the installation. You can use Gnome Partition Editor to
change partitions even after you installed Kbuntu.
The following
sections show how I installed Kubuntu 5.10 (i386 install CD-ROM) in
Oct 2006.
Boot from the CD. Follow the installer's navigation (I chose Japanese language settings).
After finishing installation of basic packages, change /etc/apt/sources.list like shown below (You need universe and multiuniverse for apt sources to install more packages):
#################################
## Australia (for example)##
deb http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy main restricted
deb-src http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy main restricted
deb http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy-updates main restricted
deb-src http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy-updates main restricted
deb http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy universe
deb-src http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy universe
deb http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
deb-src http://mirrors.uwa.edu.au/ubuntu breezy-backports main restricted universe multiverse
###################################
Xfce4 desktop is suitable for the old machine (The GX 150 only have 124 MB RAM). The following command will set up everything to run Xfce4 for you. The Japanese language settings in Xfce4 works well.
