help with old pc

[myusername]

ok so i just got this old pc. its an old amd 300mhz 32mb ram 2.1 gb hd machine. and i need ideas to get this sucker up and running so i can show that linux is better than windows to my family. i need a good distro i could put on it (and yeah i know about the sticky) any recommendations?

[tamoneya]

Damn Small Linux
Puppy Linux
gOS

[myusername]

are you sure that wouldnt be amazingly slow? gos seriously? e17 is slow on my 2.0 ghz pentium4

[tamoneya]

sorry gos is a little bit to heavy for that PC. Take a look at puppy though.

[volkswagner]

Keep on eye out on craigslist or ebay for cheap ram. Serious joy can be had with more than 128 megs if it can be had. I dont' think any distro would allow flash with that ram. More ram for the eye candy.


As is I would use DSL.

I think you will have a hard sell linux vs win95 on those ram limitations. Speed and performance would be on par. The sell would be all the free apps avail in linux, and stability.

[Canis familiaris]

Puppy Linux may run. But I doubt.

I would seriously recommend to make it as a jukebox using GeeXboX.

My Review of GeeXboX
http://dogbuntu.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/geexbox-the-ultimate-home-jukebox/

GeeXboX website
http://geexbox.org/en/index.html

[kagashe]

I have an old Pentium MMX 200 Mhz 32 MB RAM machine. Unfortunately the RAM is not expandable. I still have Windows 98 on it and I use DSL on it and the Firefox works but I have to wait a few minutes for the web page to load. This machine is a standby for my Laptop but I use it some times for browsing. Please note that DSL version is old with Firefox 1.5. I also use Puppy 2.17 on it to listen to audio CDs since Puppy has the driver for its Legacy Yamaha sound card.

Originally the hard disc was 2.1 GB but when it finished its life I had put higher capacity hard disc (may be around 6 GB). I created ext2 partitions and had installed Ubuntu Dapper command line (dual boot with Win 98 ) and added Xvesa, Xterm and Opera. But Firefox 1.5 on DSL was faster then Opera on Dapper (Xvesa server).

After reading about Debian being lighter then Ubuntu I replaced Ubuntu Dapper by Debian and tried Kazehakase browser. This is comparable to DSL on Firefox 1.5 on speed criteria.

It will be better if you add atleast another 32 MB RAM and make it atleast 64 MB.

kagashe

[darrelljon]

Puppy Linux 1.09CE.
MeanPup.
Puppy Linux 3 series.

[TheSlipstream]

People, Puppy is not the answer in this case. It runs out of RAM, making it mega fast. He has got 32 megs of RAM. You need much more then that to run a full operating system out of. I wish people would stop blindly replying Puppy to every old computer they see.

[kagashe]

People, Puppy is not the answer in this case. It runs out of RAM, making it mega fast. He has got 32 megs of RAM. You need much more then that to run a full operating system out of. I wish people would stop blindly replying Puppy to every old computer they see.You are right. I have mentioned Puppy and I use it just for listening to audio CD since I can take out Puppy CD even on 32 MB RAM (there is swap off course) and Puppy could detect the sound card and loads the driver correctly after running the sound wizard and saving configuration (done once only).

As mentioned DSL is ok and Debian Lenny also works.

kagashe

[Bungo Pony]

People, Puppy is not the answer in this case.

Agreed. You need about 128M of RAM to run Puppy.

However, Damn Small Linux WILL run in 32M of RAM. That would probably be your best option.

Just as a side note, I'm working on getting Linux onto a 128M hard drive for an old Laptop. I'm currently downloading Slitaz since DSL requires 200M of drive space to work :(

The only way I could see getting DSL onto it is by imaging or using a bigger hard drive. Unfortunately, laptop HDs are a bit hard to come by. Oh well, new distro time!

[uberlube]

may I also suggest slax and wolvix cub.

[chris4585]

I'm not 100% sure it will work... but maybe INX? there's no xorg, just framebuffer, which does allow you to look at images, play videos, surf online, listen to cds, or online radio, and other stuff (i'm currently using it, this is just a idea, I dont know how well it works on 32mbs of ram..

[K.Mandla]

ok so i just got this old pc. its an old amd 300mhz 32mb ram 2.1 gb hd machine. and i need ideas to get this sucker up and running so i can show that linux is better than windows to my family. i need a good distro i could put on it (and yeah i know about the sticky) any recommendations?
If you really want to rattle cages, start with a Windows build and show how good (or how bad) it runs. Don't forget updates, defragging, virus scanners, malwhatever scanners, and all.

Then throw the i586 version of Crux on there and make everybody jealous! :)

P.S.: All that is assuming you put a little more RAM in there, of course. 32Mb is hard to work with.