old hardware

[Dave88]

I have a old computer that my aunt gave me to fix for her, at the momment it runs windows 98 which is infected with spyware and viruses and runs slow as molasses. I planned on putting windows 2k on it but then i thought that linux might be able to make more of the hardware , I need some advice should I use windows or linux and if i should use linux which distro.

my cousin uses it play flash games, school work and surfing the net she's not really that computer savvy though.

heres the spec...

pentium 3 celeron @ 433mhz
64mb of ram + (128mb that i'ev added) total = 192mb which is shared with the video card
6gb hdd
DVD-ROM


thanks in advance.

[Hokputooy]

Linux should run fine on with those specs, if it's just going to be used for internet and word processing. I have Mandrake running on an old 400 mhz k6 with 128mb RAM and it will do interenet and word processing fine, and also some small games. As for which distro, Ubuntu would be good. Mandriva works great also an comes with more packages pre-installed then Ubuntu.

[weekend warrior]

I have ubuntu running fine on one of my older boxes, a celeron 500 with 256 mem and an 8 gig drive. I would recommend beforehand trying a livecd on it, then you'll be able to judge better how to proceed. For a live cd to try on that system I recommend Morphix 0.5-pre4 LightGUI (http://www.morphix.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=26&Itemid=59)

* Xfce 4.2
* Linux 2.6.9 kernel
* Abiword
* Mozilla firefox
* Mozilla thunderbird
* the Gimp

It ran great on the celeron. It's only a 260 mb ISO but pretty complete, well set up and nice and simple. If it works well then you can make a decision to install Morphix or install the ubuntu base and add light-weight programs to it.

HTH

[Lowe]

Just whatever you do, don't use KDE or Gnome on that machine! =/
XFCE is the way to go, i think fluxbox would be too confusing. Go for ubuntu, they'll appreciate apt-get, teach them some basic stuff and maybe install the flash plugin for them.

[Dave88]

I just tried morphix but it wasn't too good with the moniter or the sound card, I think this computer has alot of non-standard hardware so i'll try ubuntu and post how it goes.

thanks btw.

[weekend warrior]

Hmmm that's curious, Morphix is based on Knoppix which is usually top of the league for hardware detection. It will be interesting to see what ubuntu can do. Xfce or Icewm will still be good bets with an ubuntu base install.

[poofyhairguy]

64mb of ram + (128mb that i'ev added) total = 192mb which is shared with the video


With that much RAM, XFCE would be in heaven.

[Lowe]

With that much RAM, XFCE would be in heaven.
2GB ram and running XFCE, that would be scary. Gnome lags for me with 256mb ram, so i think i'll switch to XFCE too. ;)

[Dave88]

I tried windows xp (sorry, I was scared that my aunt woudn't like linux!) thinking I could strip it down a bit, no suck luck though!

I'll try ubuntu now.