Linux on Satellite Pro 430 cdt - any chance?

[Flipnation]

Hello,

My dad got an old Toshiba Satellite pro 430 cdt from a friend, it has Windows 98 on it right now and it works.

Is there any chance to get a Linux on it and which version should I pick for that? Ubuntu 9.10 would be a little too much I guess ...

Flipnation

 

[mark66j]

I had Linux running on a machine very much like that model. I would look at the Xbuntu distro, as it has a lighter weight window manager. It probably depends a lot on how much memory the laptop has. I believe I expanded mine to 48 MB. X windows will be quite slow on older models, but if you boot to a command line it will work quite well. I will try to drag out my old laptop for comparison, I forget exactly which model it is.

 

[Flipnation]

I saw mine has 120 MHz and 48 MB of RAM.

Command line should work, the Win98 works, so that should be a problem. One could let it run as a firewall, although I think this would be just a huge waste of energy

 

[digger]

I had either the 330 CT or 430 CDT (don't know by heart, it's at my Dad's house right now), and I installed Linux on it over 10 years ago and it worked even then.

so yes, Linux will run fine on it. Just make sure to use a distro with a lightweight window manager, since both GNOME and KDE will be running veeeeery sloooowly on that machine.

Even Xubuntu (which has the XFCE desktop environment) is a bit sluggish on that hardware in my experience (I tried that on the same laptop more recently).

 

[NathanAllan]

Slackware with a fluxbox front end, worked flawlessly on my similar Toshiba. Definitely go lightweight, like Mark and digger say. DSL runs okay on it if you have a CD-rom drive.