Re: Useful GUI apps on low-mem computers?
Mitch Wiedemann wrote:
>Greetings all,
>
>Our local Free Software User Group has a large number of donated
>computers, each having 64MB of RAM and a PII or PIII processor. We are
>intending to configure these computers with a useful set of software and
>make them available for use by low-income people in our community. We
>have no budget for buying more memory.
>
>My question is, if you had a computer with 64 MB of RAM, and you wanted
>to give the novice user the ability to browse the web, use e-mail,
>instant messaging, create documents and spreadsheets, etc. What window
>manager and GUI applications would you choose?
>
>
>
window manager: XFCE is a nice desktop with a small memory footprint
compared to kde or gnome. icewm is quite nice and very lightweight.
web browser: try firefox, and if it's too slow go for dillo. i have
never used dillo myself
email: of course mutt is teh classic answer, but if you're looking for a
gui, go for balsa. lightweight and very nice integration with procmail
if you want it. can be used paralell to mutt...
instant messaging: depends on the preferred protocol. gaim is probably
the best choice for multiple protocols, but if only one protocol is
needed you should try something like licq or amsn
documents, spreadsheets: openoffice may be the best office suite to
date, but it's a monster. abiword/gnumeric should suffice. abiword
supports open document.
if you choose xfce,firefox or dillo,balsa, gaim and abiword/gnumeric you
even mave a consistent looking gtk+ desktop...
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