Which distro for me?

[Tekmaven]

I wanna make a stand alone linux computer. To bad I have 3rd hand technology. I'll give you the specs for a comp i wanna put linux on. Gimme a sugestion of what distro I should use. Note: I am a Linux newbie.. you can even ask Dani!

Pentium 83mHz
4 Gig Hard Drive
i think its a 2x cd drive
nothing else to note really

[AlPhA]

for an 83? linux 1.0

[Tekmaven]

HAHA! no. I think it could even run a GUI, right? anyone back me up here.

[AlPhA]

of course! telnet!

[cscgal]

There are distributions specificially for old / slower pcs. Try one of the light footprint distros out there. You can fit an entire linux system in less than 50 mb.

[knalb]

how good is your kungfu? if you're feeling up to it, install gentoo. http://www.gentoo.org/

you will have to build the entire system as the only pre-built distributions of it are for i686+, but it is one of the lightest distributions, it is completely customizeable and.. its great stuff.

you could always fall back on a BSD variant like FreeBSD or NetBSD. they also have a small installation base. Either way, just because it comes on a cd, doesnt mean you have to install everything.

good luck, and may the shwartz be with you.

[cscgal]

From my experience, FreeBSD is really nice but hard to configure for many newbies (e.g. like Slackware or Debian)

Tek, did you ever get a distribution on that box of yours?

[aeinstein]

Pentium 83MHz - if memory serves me correctly thats an upgrade from an x486 chipset, which means ur runnin a 16bit bus. dependin on how much RAM ur runnin - & how its paired - u can at least run the Win95 gui, probably right on up to WinME if u shud care to, so i'm sure itll run a unix flavr on it w/no probs relating to cpu. 4 GB is plenty, the rest just might matter. sound like u got nothin to lose - amazin how much frustratin tech can teach ya! - & u can alwys f-disk (in Linux 2?), so pick a free distro if u dont have any reasons 4 a particular distro. me, i'm goin redhat sometime b4 the yr 2525 :!:

[Tekmaven]

I just want you guys to know that I retired this machine concept. Actually, I inherited a Gateway Server-class machine with a Pentium Pro 200mhz processor, 128mb of ram, and two 4.1gb scsi hard disks. Everyone that has been to my website knows about this computer, its the one serving up the pages :D !

Long live UNIX, god bless Novell, and sometimes Microsoft is "a'rite" (well, if your hardware isn't to new, and isn't to old :-). I love that)

[cscgal]

Tek ... Norton Personal Firewall pops up with a "possible hack" message each time your avatar, signature pic, or even ur website load - I have to click "accept" in order to load - might wanna take a looksie at that

[cscgal]

Just took a looksie ... it's because it's from a weird port (port 200)

[Tekmaven]

yeah... ool... no port 80... remember? hehe

[vbradley]

RedHat 8.0 SUCKS!

I've got a Pentium 233mhz that I've used for 5 years as my Linux Server.
Last month I made the MISTAKE of upgrading to RedHat 8.0

Tomorrow, I'm going to roll back to 7.3 on my server box.

Here's why I say "RedHat 8.0 SUCKS!"

First thing I noticed was when I upgraded my Linux Server from RedHat 7.3
that it lost it's NIC and Soundcard. Other software quit working. I had to
format the drive and start from scratch!

First thing I noticed is RedHat removed ALL MP3 players, all DivX players, and all MPEG players!

Not to mention they removed the GUI RPM manager, and all web browsers
except Mozilla. The File Browser has NO Tree view so you can't navigate anywhere! The menu manager is Hidden!

Also, removed LINUXCONF, the only GUI way to manage your partitions and
edit your /etc/fstab file. There's a version of LinuxConf for Redhat 8,
but without an RPM manager it won't install. Besides you need to
download a separate GUI for this version!
Same for Adobe reader. You can download it but it won't install!
The screen savers don't work either (if you prefer the KDE desktop)
Is this RedHat's way of convincing us to use their stupid new Gnome Hybrid?

Also this thing runs slow as molassas in the dead of Winter!

Up to now, this Pentium 233 has been just fine for Linux.

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE LINUX, but RedHat 8 SUCKS!

I'm sure glad I never installed it on my desktop.

I've left my desktop at RedHat ver 7.3 and sure am glad I did. It plays DVD's, DivX movies and MP3 music. Evolution replaces Outlook and even syncronizes my PDA.

I can do anything with Linux that windoze can do...(except
freeze all the time.)

Take my advice: Stick with RedHat 7.3 It's their best distro yet!

Vic

[MAD_DOG]

First you wrote too much and to lazy reading it but I did catch RED HAT 8.0 SUCKS! Red Hat always sucked. Use Slackware

[Forse]

as I said in other post: get NetBSD