Light Linux with codecs??

Is there any alternative to FREESPIRE, something that would run on older systems and that has flash, java and mp3 support?

Xandros was working perfect, however they wants $79 for licence...

Thanks

 

Slitaz - uses XVesa for compatibility with all kinds of old video cards, has MPlayer and Windows codecs available in the software repository. May be a bit buggy though.

Debian Stable with the Debian-multimedia repo - does need some setting up, but should work well on older machines. Flash, Java, and Windows codecs are available from the Debian-multimedia repository.

Unfortunately I can't really give any others. Most distros out there are extremely slow and bloated, to about the same point as Windows Vista; there's simply no way that e.g. Ubuntu will work on an old computer. (I know, I've tried it.)

P.S. Linux Mint has a Fluxbox version that is said to be good for older machines. Don't use it. It is slower on my Aspire 3680 laptop than Ubuntu with a full Gnome desktop.

 

I would use debian Lenny with XFCE and the multimedia repo.

do you need to be able to mount ntfs partitions?
if so you may have trouble with debian lenny..

 

Xandros and the Linspire/freespire's are a joke. The same goes for the now defunct Lindows, which by default only installed a root account! I guess they were trying very hard to be just like Windows -- security issues and all!

 

Installing Debian.

Any quick guides how to install new Firefox, Flash, Java and RealPlayer?

 

Lindows and Linspire are one and the same. When MS sued Lindows over the name, the name was changed to Linspire.

Many Linux "purist" disliked Linspire and Xandros simply because they charged money for their distros. Some disliked Lindows because they felt trying to make Linux anything like Windows was a sacrilege. I was never one of those. To me, Linspire's Click n' Run, as the forerunner to apt-get and Synaptic, was a valuable tool. But with the advent of apt-get and Synaptic, it is now outdated and so is Linspire. Just my opinion as an avowed M$ basher.

 

here ya go
http://www.howtoforge.com/the-perfect-desktop-debian-lenny
just skip the sections of stuff you dont want to install.
it may install older versions of some stuff such as java is update 13 from multimedia repo but the lastest is 14 but doesnt make much difference tbh.

 

Forerunner

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Packaging_Tool#History

 

Linspire is at any rate quite dead at this point, as is Freespire.

(The internet is littered with the corpses of Linux distros, both good and bad...)

 

I would say Linux Mint is a great, light and complete distro

 

http://debian-multimedia.org/

Enable this repo as per instructions and then install all you're codecs, media players etc through synaptic. Piece of cake.

 

Linux Mint is good but it is absolutely not lightweight; it uses a full Gnome desktop. Even the Fluxbox version (as I mentioned) is quite heavy and slow.

Just a thought - you might want to try CentOS with RPMFusion. CentOS also uses Gnome by default, but it's a very old version (2.16), much more lightweight.

 

I installed Debian Lenny, Flash Player 10, Java, Realplayer 11, VLC Player, Firefox 3.5 (deleted ICewe....).

Its working fine!

Thanks lodore! I did install already but this tutorial is very good

 

Since i actually use Iceweasel, i feel i should share this link with you, in case you're switching for all the wrong reasons.
http://times.debian.net/1022-iceweasel

 

I really don't understand peoples beef with Iceweasel. It's basically just Firefox with a different name and logo.

 

I did not know how to manage default programs that open web content (streaming etc), it was opened by mplayer even if I set Gnome to use RealPlayer as default.

Than I was thinking that Iceweasel has some custom modifications so i installed Firefox and its opening with RealPlayer now.

 

Why Realplayer, out of curiousity? MPlayer with win32 codecs should play everything it does.

 

It's just preconfigured to do that. You can change, as with Firefox, with Preferences - Applications. There you change what it does for each content type.
BTW, i don't know why you'd use RealPlayer either. Perhaps if you provide an example for one such website.

Cheers

 

Hi,

There is a stream of the Internet at www.balkaniyum.tv that require RealPlayer.

Mplayer plays sound only, no picture.

Also i did not know how to add more file types and sassociate it to programs in that list in Firefox or icewesael.

If somebody could explane that would be nice.

 

Translating, hold on

 

I seem to need to be registered. I can't check. Wish i could help you Durad