KDE, GNOME and older Power Macs

[GDB-B&W-X.3.5]

David Wadson wrote:

> After finally upgrading one of our departments to some modern Macs, 
> I've now got on my hands an assortment of...
>
> Power Mac 4400 (200mHz 603e, 64MB RAM, 2GB HD)
> Power Mac 7200 (120mHz 601, 48-64MB RAM, 500MB HD)
> Power Mac 8500 (120mHz 604e, 80-96MB RAM, 2GB HD)
>
> I'm hoping to deploy these in a department that currently has no 
> computers, but instead of running their current Mac OS 8.6, I'd prefer 
> to switch them over to YDL 3.0.1. Not just for the stability, but also 
> to be able to run OpenOffice. The machines as configured are lacking 
> RAM, but luckily a number of places have 128MB DIMMs available for 
> quite cheap so the memory can be bumped up to a more decent size.
>
> The basic needs for the machines, in order of priority from most 
> important to least, are:
>
> IMAP-compatible email client
> Word and Excel compatibility for general wordprocessing and 
> spreadsheet tasks (nothing really complicated)
> PDF viewing
> basic web surfing (we can live without Shockwave, Quicktime, 
> RealPlayer, etc.)
>
> I've been using a variety of similar Macs, and some older ones, for 
> running DNS servers, PPP gateways, mail proxies, network monitors, 
> etc. but never with a GUI desktop environment installed. So, I'm 
> looking for some advice and experience any of you may have performing 
> such tasks on this kind of hardware. If it is possible to get a 
> workable solution with this hardware, what's recommended - GNOME or 
> KDE? Does one provide any significant performance gains over the other 
> or is it mostly a matter of personal preference? My sanity might be 
> best served by just buying some newer computers, but that won't happen 
> until next year at the earliest. With this hardware, I have the 
> opportunity, limited as it may be, to get some computers into people's 
> hands now. Plus, even if we do get new computers next year, I'd still 
> be giving Linux serious consideration for the operating system so my 
> efforts deploying this hardware could be worthwhile if just for the 
> experience.
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Dave Wadson
> IT Manager
> The Chronicle-Journal
>
I can only speak about the 7200, but I ran the previous version of YDL 
on it some time ago with 64 Mb of RAM and it was extremely slow.  Too 
slow to be considered a viable machine in my book.  YMMV.

Just a message from Doug...