Any of the box's would be a good choice for a gui on an older machine (Fluxbox, Blackbox, Whitebox in particular), but you're talking about window managers (WM) and not about distros here. You could just install fluxbox on top of your base ubuntu/IceWM install (apt-get install fluxbox) and try that out, see if it's any faster. <div class="gmail_quote">On Wed, Jan 20, 2010 at 6:54 PM, Bert W. Carrier Jr. <<a href="mailto:bertcarrier@gmail.com">bertcarrier@gmail.com</a>> wrote: <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;"> Hello folks, I am new to the group, and I have been using Ubuntu 9.10 for a few months now on my main box. I like it quite well, and I rarely boot to XP at all anymore. I tried Kubuntu, and did'nt care for it as it was slow and crashed often. I also am running Xubuntu on one of my P4 laptops, and it seems ok. My question is: I have a P3, 500mhz dinosaur laptop with 192mb RAM, and I want to run linux on it for word processing, email, and web surfing. I tried Xubuntu with no success, it's far too slow. I installed the base Ubuntu system from the alternate install CD, and installed IceWM, but I didn't care for that. I don't think I am ready to build my own version of a GUI. What is a good, prepackaged distro for a slow old beater? How about Fluxbox, has anyone tried it? Sorry if I come off like a total noob, but I guess if the shoe fits, right? Bert _______________________________________________ linux-user mailing list <a href="mailto:linux-user@egr.msu.edu">linux-user@egr.msu.edu</a> <a href="http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user" target="_blank">http://mailman.egr.msu.edu/mailman/listinfo/linux-user</a> </blockquote></div>