an old pc's recomended distro

[Weedman]

hello,

my cousin has a an old computer with these specs. Before i try and search around for 2nd hand better parts for it, i thought it was worth a shot seeong what distro/s could run on it.

the pc presently:

pentium 150mhz
1gb hdd
24mb ram
cd drive
really old & crap cirrus logic video card
(note the motherboard is the old Baby AT size)

i was thinking maybe vector linux but that requires too much ram.

last note: i can upgrade the ram in it to 88mb


any thoughts are appreciated

weed

[{MaX}]

From what I've heard, Slackware works well on slower systems. Zenwalk Linux (Previously Minislack) uses XFCE as the default DE and is Slack based with their principle being "One program for one task".

You can also go for Gentoo with the XFCE. Or build Linux from scratch.

[Weedman]

if i did get slackware, what version would i get?
would i get 10.1 and do you know of any mirrors that hold the images for it?

also i did not know that minislack was renamed to Zenwalk linux (i went on hols last weekend)

thanks for your suggestion. Just about all the posts that i have put in about distros for a certain spec pc the replies stated that slackware would be good.

i am definatly gonna try it now!

[borromini]

The latest - it is optimized for i486 so you don't have to worry.

I'm using the new ZenWalk 1.2 myself, on my other compo Minislack 1.1 (its predecessor) is still installed, and all I can say is that I simply love it. And it is fully Slackware compliant (and based on the latest Slackware edition). The iso is only 400 MB, whereas Slackware is 2 cd's. Be sure to check it out!

[Weedman]

excellent!

i was looking at getting minislack for another pc already.

i will definatly be getting Zenwalk and later i will try out slackware 10.1


thanks for your suggestions

weed

[drakebasher]

Whatever distro/version you get, you will want to increase your RAM. The more the better, but 24Mb is going to be difficult. I've gotten RAM from eBay for not much money. Sometimes you can harvest some from junk computers.

[borromini]

Yep, that's right... I didn't read the specs, just saw he wanted a distro for older software . Even Damn Small Linux wouldn't run normally on 24 MB RAM I think.

[George Harrison]

I would try *BSD out if I were in your position, I have an old pc almost as bad off as yours and I run OpenBSD on it within CLI and it works for me.

[Weedman]

i was thinking of looking for a 2nd hand mboard to boost the cpu speed up to 233mhz as i have a spare cpu lying around
i have some ram i can put in that computer, however i miss-did the calculations and the actual ram i can boost it to is: 12+64=76mb of ram considering what i ahve at this present time. The ram i need are SIMMS (at least i think thats what they are off the top of my head).

i like the idea of *BSD but i would have to experience it myself before i could put it on my cousins pc. (Note: I am yet to get him to read the intros to linux)