Favorite Distro for Older/Weaker Hardware

[oz]

This poll/thread is meant to help those users that are having difficulty deciding which distribution(s) they should use to work with their older/weaker computer. Please use it to post information about your favorite distro for older/weaker hardware, but don't post comments saying that any particular distro is the best, because the best truly is very subjective.

Note that this thread will be locked and/or deleted at the end of the year and a new thread started.

[devils casper]

Damn Small Linux.
it has two versions. DSL having kernel version 2.4 and DSL-N having kernel version 2.6.
one should try DSL first, if it doesn't work, DSL-N will definitely work,

[tech_man]

It is close between Vector and Slack, but I went with Slack because it was the first after all.

[harner]

I would say Arch or Slack, but Arch takes the ball. I don't have much personal experience with it like I do with Slack, however I learned it in college. Great for beginners and easy to work with. I completely recommend this distro to anyone interested in Linux.

[tommytabib]

I voted DSL, although i have not actually tried it before but i have heard many a good review and distrowatch shows that its really getting up there with the major distros.

[oz]

I voted Slackware, but Zenwalk and DSL are right up there with it.

[bidi]

I went with Slackware here! I used the process of elimination. Zenwalk, DSL and Puppy really aren't FULL distros and sometimes I just have to have GCC and headers (my test comptures need to be connected to the internet through a wireless card, which has a free driver but needs to be compiled). Vector really isn't a lightweight distro but a "more polished" Slackware. Debian is nice, I might favorite over all distro, but doesn't seem to do so well with a slow processor. And I've never tried Arch, but from what I gather it's a source distro, which doesn't mate well with older hardware.

There's also another distro out there called DeLi Linux which is specially geared toward 486-to-PI/II processors which is really nice. I think if it were on the list I would have a hard time choosing between it and Slackware.

[valemon]

That's vector for me, though it requires more power than DSL. If you got >400MHz and >128 Mb you are ok with Vector (running xfce)

[daacosta]

Damn Small Linux has been good to me....

[Giles]

I do love DSL, and I use slack for some things too. I voted "other", tho, because in my ordinary day-to-day usage I always use Mandriva, and have been running it very successful on pretty old hardware all of my Linux life. Probably the oldest box I've put it on was a 266Mhz proc, 192Mb ram old beast which is now my server, so this might not be a valid answer for anyone who's planning to use even older hardware.

Just always use blackbox
Giles