MiniNo is a free and lightweight linux distro for old computers with less advanced hardware configuration. It has a simple interface with a menu on the bottom left corner and an auto-hide quick access panel on the left that sneaks away when you’re not looking at it. It has its own lightweight web browser – Midori and some useful tools like Abiword – The word processor, a PDF and Ebook Reader, OSMO as it’s organizer that lets you keep a check on your schedule and set reminders with inbuilt calender, notes and contacts manager.
How to run it?
MiniNo can be booted up from a Live CD or USB drive or you can choose to install it in your hard dik. You can test MiniNO by installing it onto a Virtual Machine and check out the features before installing it on to your computer (just like I did).
When you start-up this lightweight Linux Distro, it presents you with a screen from where you can choose the language (I chose English). Once you choose the language, you can go for the type of installation you want: Basic Installer or Advanced Installer. Or, you can choose the “GALPon MiniNo” to run it without installation and try it out first.
MiniNo also allows you to boot it into the Safe Mode (with fewer features), choose the Video Modes available (screen resolution) and provides you with some utilities to troubleshoot before you actually boot into this lightweight Linux Distro.
Some Cool Softwares with MiniNo
FBReader
You might be fond of reading. Well, then we have a good, nice and lightweight Ebook Reader pre-installed with this lightweight Linux Distro. This Ebook reader has a list of some online libraries like FeedBooks, ManyBooks, SmashWords etc., from where you can download the books into this Ebook reader.
AbiWord
We probably might have heard about AbiWord as it’s a lightweight, open source and a really good word processor. It has all the features that you would find in an advanced word processor, all embedded in to this, yet small and lightweight.
Gnumeric
Of course we would need a spreadsheet software when we talk about an office suite. And because it is a lightweight Linux distro, it would make sense if we have a lightweight spreadsheet software to carry out our complicated calculations, organize charts and bar graphs for our data. Gnumeric is just that lightweight spreadsheet that gets the job done.
Midori
We would need to access the internet and if we’re running this lightweight Linux Distro to bring back our old dead box alive, then the browser got to be a lightweight browser or else it would defeat the purpose of this lightweight Linux Distro. Midori lets you do all that you can with your other favorite browsers but with one difference that it’s a little light on the memory installed in the computer.
UMPlayer
UMPlayer is an open source media player installed in MiniNo and can play literally anything from DVD, Web streams, TV/Radiocards, music files etc. You can quickly search on YouTube and play your favorite videos in this video player. You can also choose from the inbuilt list of online Radio Stations available.
GPaint
GPaint is one of the software in this lightweight Linux Distro to let you paint your imagination on the screen. It is a simple and easy to use software without much of those advanced options to confuse you. Apart from this tool, you can also access other tools like mtPaint, fotoxx, PhotoPrint, ColorSelector etc., that falls into the category of Graphic software.
Apart from these software that we talked about we have a huge list of software available within this lightweight Linux distro. MiniNo also lets you connfigure the settings for the hardware installed in the computer. It also has some other useful tools like MyIp, MacSpoof, Transmission etc., that falls under Internet Tool’s category to quickly let you access your IP Address and Mac Address that rules out the need of using an online tool to gather this information.
Conclusion
You can consider downloading and trying out MiniNo as it has all the features you’re looking for that can specially run in your old computer. You can let this lightweight Linux Distro to take over your hardisk and you’ll not be regretting it as it has all those lightweight tool that would get the job done with much less system requirement. I would recommed MiniNo to anyone who would like to bring back an old computer to life.
