Best OS for an ancient machine and easy-to-configure?

[Fzang]

My friend has a machine with windows 98, he just gave it 100 MB RAM extra and now it has like 150'ish... he calls it a hax0r machine (lol)

I've suggested him to install linux, because it will pwn win98 in every bit..

So, it has to be a lightweight distro aaaaand... it must be idiotproof as he only uses it for surfing and flash games/crap stuff

Which distro?

[GreenN00b]

What about http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ ?

[Thirtysixway]

You could get Xubuntu (maybe 6.06). I ran it on an old machine with 100mb ram, it worked out pretty well.

Another really lightweight distro would be puppylinux but can be a little confusing for someone who isn't a big linux person. Also Slax is pretty easy to get and is lightweight.

[Old_Gray_Wolf]

You might try:

Puppy Linux - http://www.puppylinux.org/home/overview
or
TinyMe - http://tinyme.mypclinuxos.com/

I'm sure there are others.

[firefeather]

I don't know about the others, but DSL and Puppy Linux weren't that easy for me to use and configure. If Xubuntu or another XFCE-based distro is installable, I think you should try that first.

[do_0m]

I inherited a PC from my uncle with Windows 98 SE, AMD Athlon 600mh, and 288 MB RAM. Installed TinyME which works very nicely, even for a Linux idiot like me. Before this I had SimplyMEPIS... I think SM was too big for it though. Crashed a bunch and the reason I installed TinyME was because it wouldn't boot into SM at all. Upon the first boot there's a nice little popup that shows how to configure stuff like clock, network, etc. Made it very easy. If your friend knows how to operate Windows reasonably it shouldn't be too hard.

If TinyME is too big, I think the next best thing would be Puppy. Way more difficult (I still can't figure out how to make Wi-Fi configuration load on each boot) but I think TinyME is smaller than Xubuntu.

[cardinals_fan]

Vector Light, Puppy, or SliTaz.

[init1]

My friend has a machine with windows 98, he just gave it 100 MB RAM extra and now it has like 150'ish... he calls it a hax0r machine (lol)

I've suggested him to install linux, because it will pwn win98 in every bit..

So, it has to be a lightweight distro aaaaand... it must be idiotproof as he only uses it for surfing and flash games/crap stuff

Which distro?
Honestly, I don't Linux is nearly as capable as Windows 98 on old computers. Puppy and DSL are great...if they work. I used SliTaz on an old computer, but I'm not sure if 150MB is enough. There isn't much beyond that. Yeah, you could try Xubuntu or Vector, but those will run really slow compared to Windows.

[wolfen69]

+1 for puppy

[Thisislaw]

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=575456
That page will explain which distro to use depending on your RAM. Also +1 for Damn Small Linux.

[kerry_s]

debian xfce4:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r4/i386/iso-cd/debian-40r4-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso

[mikjp]

Slackware is easy to configure, but you must be comfortable with using command line. Zenwalk and Vector Linux are even easier. Try Zenwalk first, it is based on Slackware and should run fine with e a Pentium III class processor, 128 MB RAM and 2Gb free disk space.

I myself have installed Debian 3.1 on a P100 box with 40 MB RAM and 800 MB hard disk. I used windowmaker and blackbox as window managers.

Check out some other possibilities in my blog posting Top 10 of lightweight Linux distributions (http://lightlinux.blogspot.com/2008/06/top-10-of-lightweight-linux_24.html). Another interesting blog is Linux Distribution testing - on old computers (http://ldtooc.blogspot.com/).

Greetings,

mikko

[tel93]

debian xfce4:
http://cdimage.debian.org/debian-cd/4.0_r4/i386/iso-cd/debian-40r4-i386-xfce-CD-1.iso

+9328765398765928752087640276348725476325947072087 5

Great suggestion :)

[darrelljon]

I haven't tried Slitaz, DeLi or TinyMe but I reckon Puppy is the easiest to configure even compared to heavyweight distros (or even Windows 98). One bit of advice, avoid distros with Xfce like Xubuntu.

[Fzang]

Huh? Why? Is XFCE bad or something?

[cardinals_fan]

Huh? Why? Is XFCE bad or something?
Xfce is good. Xubuntu is just a bit bloated.

[tel93]

Xfce is good. Xubuntu is just a bit bloated.

So is Wolvix, Zenwalk, etc. If you want XFCE install Debian, Arch and Slackware and install XFCE on top of them.