descenterace on 23/2/2006 at 12:31
Inline Image:
http://www.arouse.net/despair-linux/slackware.jpg:p
Slackware's OK. Installing it is a bit more awkward than DeadRat and a fair amount easier than Gentoo. It's also the only distro I've used that set itself up for 64-bit and 32-bit apps without excessive fiddling with package managers/compilers/hammers, but that's not really relevant in this case.
Personally, I prefer Debian and Gentoo. Debian's nice and simple to install and its package manager (Apt) is probably the best for gnubies.
TheMuffinMan on 23/2/2006 at 14:27
So how about a distro that will run reasonably well on something a bit older, even? I have this project I've been working on. An old Panasonic Toughbook with a 166Mhz Pentium and about 80MB of RAM (just added the extra 64MB). The hard drive is going to be replaced soon with a 2GB CompactFlash card.
I had an install of Damn Small Linux 1.5 running off of a 256MB CF card a while back, and it was quick enough. The problem was that it had some incompatibilities with the display hardware (it would cut off a chunk of the desktop at 800*600, as though the desktop were running at 1024*768, but just showing part of it).
Any ideas for a good distro? Better yet, ideas on how to twist DSL's arm to get it to work properly?
(Fresh battery cells on the way! Huzzah!)
Strangeblue on 23/2/2006 at 20:20
Knoppix?
Piccy on 24/2/2006 at 07:23
I would also recommend Ubuntu. I have used it and really like it. Nice and easy for the Linux novice. I just hate the default colour scheme :nono:
I would have recommended Suse if the specs were a little higher. This is my distro of choice.
baeuchlein on 24/2/2006 at 13:00
Something one should keep in mind is that it's not really a problem to have both Windows and Linux installed on the same computer. For anyone new to Linux, I would suggest installing both OS'. That way, one always has one system he/she is familiar with. Although I started using Linux five or six years ago, I am still far from being able to replace Windows completely, and I'm not talking only about games.
By installing both OS', I can select my own "learning pace", since I can always switch back to Windows for any particular task I can't do with Linux (yet). For example, I still have no graphical desktop with Linux, so I use Windows when necessary. On the other hand, Linux is able to do many things without any graphical display: I can use email, browse the internet (I'm even writing this text with Linux now), write CDs and DVDs, copy files via network to another computer, check Windows' partitions for errors (even if Scandisk complains about not getting enough memory), and so on.
A 6 GB hard disk should be enough to install Linux and Windows, even if one uses one of Linux' graphical desktops (on Debian, this filled my hard disk with about 1 gigabyte of new stuff, just to have some graphics - I guess something went wrong here). 3 GB for each OS should be OK.
If your friend manages to shrink the Windows partition with a program, he can even keep his working Windows installation and just add a Linux installation. There are several programs which can do this; some directly alter a partition's size, while others save the partition's contents to a file (called an "image file") and allow you to select a different size for the partition when you restore the contents from the image file. The latter kind of program also provides you with a backup of a working system, which is the main use of such programs. Since there are a few problems with Linux installations that can result in an inaccessible Windows system or something like that, making a backup of the hard disk contents would be a good idea anyway.
dracflamloc on 24/2/2006 at 19:48
The problem here is he has only 6gb to work with. Just use Linux. Maybe Windows 95 or 98 if you really need to.
