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What Linux distro to use for old Intel machine, that fits on CDs?



 
 
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Old June 28th 08, 01:38 PM posted to comp.os.linux.misc,alt.comp.hardware.pc-homebuilt,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Robert Heller
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Default What Linux distro to use for old Intel machine, that fits on CDs?

At Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:24:31 -0700 (PDT) raylopez99 wrote:


I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
a year of trying.

Maybe three's the charm?

Here goes again...

I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that
somebody uses on occasion to surf the net and print a letter on a
recent model HP inkjet using OpenOffice as the word processor
program. The machine is running on Windows 2000. The machine is an
Intel Pentium II, about 200 MHz clock, with about 500 MB RAM (or maybe
it's 225, I upgraded it but forgot what it was, but I'm pretty sure
it's 512 MB). The C: hard drive is only 2 GB large--the only one for
the OS. This was a popular configuration in the mid to late 90s so
I'm sure a lot of these machines exist in the world, so somebody must
have loaded Linux on one of them.

The machine has no DVD, only a CD reader. It has a late 90s but
popular video card, forget the brand.

What Linux distro to use for this configuration? I can, using another
PC, download a distro, but then I would have to burn it onto a CD or
CDs, so I would rather not do that--that is, I would rather get or buy
a Linux distro that is already burnt, in proper order, onto labeled
CDs to make installation easier.


Visit www.cheapbytes.com.

You can get CentOS 4.mumble on CDs. This should work just fine.


In case you're wondering why I want to switch to Linux: though the NT
system is functional, it's slow, and rumor has it that Linux is 'virus
free' (or nearly so) and faster. Presumeably since Linux is virus-
free I would not need antivirus (AV) software. Is this true?
Eliminating AV software would free up RAM. Again, this system is not
for a power user. I myself am a power user, would never think of
switching to Linux. But for this lightweight user, perhaps Linux
might work for them.


On that sort of machine, you *won't* want to use a heavyweight
GUI/Desktop -- you don't want either Gnome nor KDE. Go for a
lightweight setup: fvwm for example. This will probably mean you won't
get all of the pointy-clicky goodies you might be used to.

I use a *very* plain X11 setup: just fvwm in MVM mode. One desktop, no
start menu, no desktop icons at all: I use FVWM's 'IconBox' and a home
built 'session manager' / menu launcher program written in Tcl/Tk. I
start most applications from a shell xterm window. This is very
lightweight and works well on older / low-powered (slower, low amount
of RAM) hardware. I refuse to use new, bleeding edge hardware -- I'd
rather just 'rescue' perfectly good boxes from dumpster land than
spend big bucks for 'excess' processor -- I don't *need* a dual 64-bit
processor *desktop* with 4gig of RAM -- about as dumb as using a monster
truck with 5' tall tires to drive 1 mile to buy a quart of milk on a dry
paved road on a warm sunny day.


Any ideas welcome. Be advised that I also needle the posters at
comp.os.linux.advocacy, but this is not a flame. I really have not
been able to get a straight answer on this issue.

Some common mistakes made by respondants: they recommend their
favorite distro without checking the min system requirements; they
recommend something they've never tried (Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, and Damn
Small Linux seem to be a favorites--but I need somebody who is very
familiar with a distro before I install it and find out it won't work
on this archaic system); and they assume that I have fast internet
access on this machine. Also, some spiteful types from
comp.os.linux.advocacy (avoid this group like the plague unless you
simply enjoy flaming for its own sake) recommend distros that, when I
research them, find they won't work on this machine specified above,
so, please cite your choice with a link if possible.


I use CentOS 4.6 on my systems right now. I have an old Toshiba laptop
(166mhz Pentium I, 144meg of RAM) that has WBL 3.0 on it, but I did run
CentOS 4.3 on it at one point (while trying to get wireless cards to
work) -- I don't at this point since the RHEL 2.6 kernel has no default
support for ISA-flavor sound cards. I presently run CentOS 4.6 on a
number of older machines, including:

An old Dell laptop: Insperion 4000: 700mhz PII, 256meg of RAM.

My desktop: a 500mhz PII with 384Meg of RAM.

It was running on my older desktop: a 500mhz K6 with 256meg of RAM
until its MB died -- I transplanted most of the rest of the old system
to the newer box (disks, SCSI disk controller, DVD-ROM, and RAM).

I have it on a 400mhz K6 with 256meg of RAM, but I don't use this
latter box much -- I think its hard drive is dieing.

CentOS (www.centos.org) is a GPL 'clone' of RHEL. CentOS 4 is a fairly
conservative distro. It won't have bleeding edge stuff, but works well
and reliably on most older hardware. While it does include 586
kernels, it does not include ISA support out-of-the-box -- this should
not be a problem for you, since you seem to have a 686 (PII) and
probably don't have any ISA cards, unless your MB's sound is a 'legacy'
sound controller, like the one on my desktop's motherboard -- I don't
care if the sound on my desktop is non-functional -- the sound on my
laptop works and that is fine by me. Oh the win-modem built into the
laptop is also non-functional (again I don't care -- the *external*
RS232 hardware modem on my desktop works, as does the built-in Ethernet
on the laptop).




Thanks for your attention.

RL


--
Robert Heller -- Get the Deepwoods Software FireFox Toolbar!
Deepwoods Software -- Linux Installation and Administration
http://www.deepsoft.com/ -- Web Hosting, with CGI and Database
-- Contract Programming: C/C++, Tcl/Tk

 




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