Linux recommendations

Henri The Hammer on 21/2/2006 at 16:58

Ok, my friend has this OLD computer which has Windows 95. He's tired to it and would like to install Linux to his computer, what version of Linux do you recommend? System specs:
- Pentium 300 MHz processor (im not sure about mainboard)
- Matrox Millenium PCI graphics card
- 96 MB Ram
- 6 GB hard disk
- Creative SB AWE 64
Any recommendations are appreciated.

Jakeyboy on 21/2/2006 at 17:16

I havent used linux for a couple of years, but first it depends how much he knows, and how much he wants to learn about the inner workings. It's so damn configurable and sometime you have to do alot of the configurations manually.

I'd reccomend Mandrake for it's simplicity, probably nothing after v.9 due to the age of the computer, possibly even older. I'm not sure about advanced use, SuSe I've heard is professionally used, so I'd expect that to be a good choice.

Henri The Hammer on 21/2/2006 at 17:23

Well he hasn't really used Linux except when playing games on my computer. :p
And he would also like to have LAN between this computer and his better computer which has Win XP. Does that Mandrake support LAN with XP?

dracflamloc on 21/2/2006 at 17:36

Yes it does. I think you should try and older mandrake or redhat. Maybe Fedora Core 1 would be a good choice. I know all that hardware you listed is supported on linux so you shouldn't have to go through any hoops setting it up properly (unless you have a wireless card)

Fingernail on 21/2/2006 at 17:37

GET A REAL OPERATING SYSTEM YOU NERDS

WINDOWS ME FOREVER

Briareos H on 21/2/2006 at 17:43

Considering the specs, it really depends if he wants something very easy for a linux newbie that will be slow as hell (mandriva/mandrake or ubuntu - better perf with ubuntu anyway), or something that requires a little more work but runs great (eg. debian with enlightenment or fluxbox as a windowmanager). It's up to him and the time he wishes to invest in learning a nix system.

And as it will inevitably degenerate in a flamewar, let me add that everything RPM (mandriva/mandrake, fedora/red hat) sucks.

jay pettitt on 21/2/2006 at 17:46

Prey tell, what does your old friend want to do with his old PC, and how much time is he willing to invest...

Otherwise...

(http://www.ubuntu.com/) Ubuntu. Dunno, never tried it - but I'd like too. Apparently it's just like linux, but for normal people - yeah right. Word is, it's actually good.

(http://www.slackware.com/) Slackware is happy being fast and light. It's Linux for Linuxy people.

And there are lots of others. (http://www.gentoo.org/) Gentoo takes three days to install. And by 'days' I mean 24 hour periods - without sleep. But if you're nerd enough, it does rock. ~~Mandrake~~ (http://wwwnew.mandriva.com/en) Mandriver on the other hand can be installed and set up by your cat inbetween naps. Oh and there's (http://www.freebsd.org/) FreeBSD - I'm not sure why nobody uses it; it's probably the best OS in the world (except Windows ME, duh). But it isn't Linux.

Whatever you choose, for lots of zing you might be wanting a fast lightweight window manager like (http://fluxbox.sourceforge.net/) FluxBox rather than a heavy weight like Gnome or KDE. Though 300mhz with 96MB really isn't that sloppy.

Obviously there's nothing Linux likes more than being on a network and it will play nice with XP. Unfortunately XP won't play nice with anything that doesn't make Microsoft money.

Henri The Hammer on 21/2/2006 at 18:08

I think he will use it mostly for playing games. I wonder if there's any LAN game that works on both computers...
BTW, he just managed to break the computer somehow or something. :p
He was installing new 48x Cd-rom drive to this computer and after that computer didn't start! We tried almost everything but it just didn't start, it must be the power-source (or what's it called, power-unit ??? i don't know) that has broken because he said he heard some strange noise coming from there before computer broke. :confused:
Currently he's trying to replace it with another from even older computer...
Hope he doesn't electrocute himself! :laff:

jay pettitt on 21/2/2006 at 18:15

Yes lol, I hope he doesn't die. Does he have a wife and children? I hope they're autistic (just in case) :laff:

If you're just pinging stuff back and forward for Unreal Tournament and the like you shouldn't have a probelm.

Henri The Hammer on 21/2/2006 at 18:20

No he doesn't have... yet. :thumb:
I just remember all the times we managed to destroy something vital when taffin' with computer parts... Best incident was when we managed to blow Thief 2 game cd up in his cd-drive. :laff: