Linux Distro

[mrgreen4242]

Hi all -

I have sold my main PC as I save up cash for an iMac, not to far now, but I have at least a month ahead of me using my OLD old computer... a Celeron (p2 class) 333mhz with 128MB of RAM! GASP. I could run Win98SE, but I am not huge fan of Windoze. :\

Anyways, I am a Linux user mainly, but I have only evered used Mandrake and Redhat/Fedora's current releases, and I am pretty sure that those are too much for my little system.

Can anyone recommend a distro that will work well with these meager system specs? I'm not going to send any money upgrading this computer, but all I need is email, web, basic media (mp3 playback) and basic word processing. This should be doable with this computer, I just need to find a distro that won't eat up all my system resources with the windows manager.

Thanks,
Rob

[applemacdude]

SuSe Linux

[mrgreen4242]

Originally Posted by applemacdude

SuSe Linux

Doesn't SuSe only have retail editions of their software? I don't wanna pay for a Linux distro that I will only use for a month or 6 weeks, especially when I don't need a cutting edge release, just something to run on a 6 year old Gateway box. =P

Rob

[applemacdude]

Originally Posted by mrgreen4242

Doesn't SuSe only have retail editions of their software? I don't wanna pay for a Linux distro that I will only use for a month or 6 weeks, especially when I don't need a cutting edge release, just something to run on a 6 year old Gateway box. =P

Rob

im sure u can dl it

[TDM21]

I suggest going to LinuxISO.org to download a copy of linux. They have links to the most popular versions of linux.

and yes, you can download SUSE for free.

[mkrishnan]

I had pretty good luck with Knoppix too on older systems, although mine was a little newer than yours. And it is a fast way to see if you're happy with Linux speeds on the computer.

[mrgreen4242]

Originally Posted by mkrishnan

I had pretty good luck with Knoppix too on older systems, although mine was a little newer than yours. And it is a fast way to see if you're happy with Linux speeds on the computer.

I actually ended up with a Knoppix variant, DSL or Damn Small Linux. It's a live cd that is 50mb (the size of a business card CD-R)... the size isn't really the key, but rather since everything is so small it is very resource responsible

There's a great utilty on the DSL homepage that lets you create a custom ISO with the applications you want. It's all pretty slick.

Thanks everyone!

Rob

[Mechcozmo]

Originally Posted by mrgreen4242

I actually ended up with a Knoppix variant, DSL or Damn Small Linux. It's a live cd that is 50mb (the size of a business card CD-R)... the size isn't really the key, but rather since everything is so small it is very resource responsible

DSL runs on a 486, too. I've run it on a Pentium 133MHz with 16MB of RAM. Its a pretty nice flavor of Linux.

Damn Small Linux!

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by mrgreen4242

I actually ended up with a Knoppix variant, DSL or Damn Small Linux.

So did you end up adding Firefox to it, or is the browser they pack in there actually useable? Hmmm...DSL with Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice would still be pretty small and be a fairly potent thing....

[Mechcozmo]

Originally Posted by mkrishnan

So did you end up adding Firefox to it, or is the browser they pack in there actually useable? Hmmm...DSL with Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice would still be pretty small and be a fairly potent thing....

It comes with a version of FireFox.
There are alternatives to Open Office that are even smaller. Those are used.
Linkety is a good place to go to see what is in DSL, and why. I like DSL quite a bit...

[mkrishnan]

Originally Posted by Mechcozmo

It comes with a version of FireFox.
There are alternatives to Open Office that are even smaller. Those are used.
Linkety is a good place to go to see what is in DSL, and why. I like DSL quite a bit...

Ahh, I see. Thanks! I actually had looked there already, but I thought it just included the Dillo and Links browsers.... I should check this out sometime for one of the old PCs we have.

[Roger1]

I've run Red Hat on a PII 266. I had to beef the RAM up to around 256 MB, but it ran fine. Maybe try Debian. I'm running it on a PII 266, with 192 MB of Ram, and it runs pretty good.


edit: I mean Red Hat 8.0. I have also run Fedora on the same system with few problems.

[johncage]

I'm biased - I've been a longtime Slackware user. But I can't recommend it enough for situations such as yours where hardware is... ahhh... less than adequate. Slackware is a linux distro that strives to be as plain vanilla as possible - which generally means no extra crap running in the background. Couple that with a lightweight window manager (no gnome or KDE) and you should get a system capable of the basics that'll last you a little while. Best of luck....