Favorite Distro for Older/Weaker Hardware

[Gustav]

I got a great experience with DSL in some old pcs. Nevertheless, DSL developers say that the SO was thinked to be used with LiveCDs, pendrives or "damn small computers" (they have only the elemental hardware and are really small, but not old and slow) and not for HD installations.
I really don't care, because DSL saved some of my old pcs from being thrown away. That's why I voted it.

[Seren]

I got a great experience with DSL in some old pcs. Nevertheless, DSL developers say that the SO was thinked to be used with LiveCDs, pendrives or "damn small computers" (they have only the elemental hardware and are really small, but not old and slow) and not for HD installations.
I really don't care, because DSL saved some of my old pcs from being thrown away. That's why I voted it.

Of the low resources Linuxes that I've tried, DSL worked the worst. I don't remember the specifics, but I think it wouldn't even install.

My favorite has been one called SaxenOS, which previously had another name, STX maybe. After Saxen, I've done well with Vector.

[budman7]

I voted DSL as this distron has saved me a number of times.
I just read on DW about a new distro from Mepis called Antix that is targeted at older hardware.
I have not tested this one yet, but am downloading now to check on an older pc that I just received.

[apoorv_khurasia]

Gentoo....because everything is in your hands....so you can cut short on resource intensive softwares.....

[Xheralt]

Morphix "Lite". gui=XCFE

I got it working on a Pentium-2, 333MHz machine with 64MB of RAM and a 2-and-a-fraction gig HD. The fraction-of-a-gig was crucial, the install wanted at least 2GB for Linux, AFTER creating swap partition. It looked clean, and was tolerable speed-wise. Not that one expects miracles of speed out of a machine that old.

I'm not sure I would class Morphix as a 'favorite'. The interface was still a little clunkier than I liked, and filling the gaps in such a minimal install requires more Linux knowledge than *I* have (I've been doing Linux in earnest for less than a month!) I think Fedora 7's spoiled me -- that's what I use on my primary Linux box. I also have 2 WinXP machines, which is what I'm more used to.

I set the Morphix box aside and built a slightly better (scavenged) system with a Pentium-2/450MHz, 128MB RAM, and 4GB HD, and was able to install the CURRENT PCLinuxOS on it!

I'll pribably wipe that distro from the 450 and try something else before long. I'm just curious what I can get running on it!

I might try something else on the 333. Maybe Mint "Cassandra"?

[Gustav]

Of the low resources Linuxes that I've tried, DSL worked the worst. I don't remember the specifics, but I think it wouldn't even install.

My favorite has been one called SaxenOS, which previously had another name, STX maybe. After Saxen, I've done well with Vector.

I experimented with many distributions in an old laptop, and it's true that DSL isn't the best because it's hard to configure and wasn't prepared for HD installations, I would rather prefer Puppy linux for my laptop.

[Xheralt]

I might try something else on the 333. Maybe Mint "Cassandra"?

Based on the LiveCD, I really *like* Mint's "Cassandra" beta-release. It's an XCFE gui setup that resembles Gnome more than KDE. Haven't had time to try it out on the P-II/450, though.

[anomie]

The poll choices seem like good ones for older hardware (I don't know much about Vector or Zenwalk).

Although they're not Linux distros, I'd add that I have installed both FreeBSD and NetBSD on some low end hardware (450MHz AMD K6-2, 256MB RAM) with good results.

For FreeBSD I installed a base system plus some packages (not ports), including fluxbox.

For NetBSD I installed just a base system to test it out. It was pretty snappy even on that hardware.

[mahlerfan]

Well my Father had an old pc that wouldn't boot. He couldn't even load the Windows 98 install discs to reinstall. So he gave up on it. Well I had him try either Puppy or DSL, he chose Puppy... he tried it and when Windows failed him, Linux did not. It booted and ran smoothly despite only having 60 MB of ram. He managed to save all his data on the pc, so I say way to go Puppy! I imagine dsl is equally cool, but I haven't used either.

[anomie]

I realize this thread is aged a few months already, but as an addendum to what I wrote earlier: Just this weekend I acquired an older Dell Latitude CPx. It's a Pentium III 650MHz w/ 256MB RAM. Depending on your definition of old/weak hardware, that may or may not qualify, but I think it's pretty low-end.

I installed CentOS 4 on it, and it's running like a champ. No problems detecting hardware. For a wm I installed blackbox. I am using dillo and (when needed) firefox for crusing the web. For IM client I installed naim. I'll stay away from the fuller featured productivity apps altogether -- OOo or gnumeric would probably be intolerable.

So I decided to add my recommendation for CentOS w/ a light wm on old/weak hardware.