Turn and old Win98 laptop into a NetBook

[Alex Ethridge]

I have two Dell laptops here with 64 megs of RAM, USB and PCMCIA ports so making them wireless will not be a problem. One has a 20- and the other a 40-Gig hard disk. I'm thinking of turning them into NetBooks for a couple of 10- and 12-year-olds.

First off, is this a practical task or am I just dreaming?

I've never run any Linux distro longer than it took to get frustrated and run back to Windows so I really don't know much about what I'm asking so be kind and try to put it into some language I can understand.

[rokytnji]

Here is what I did to get an old box to run with linux

Yet Another Technology Site: Compaq Armada 1540DM running Windows 95 and Linux Puppy 2.15CE

Yet Another Technology Site: Damn Small Linux 4.0 install on Compaq 1540DM

One install will coexist with Windows. The other is a Linux only install without Windows in the computer anymore.

[Bemk]

Most of the time the older hardware is well supported in GNU/Linux, that means that this is very possible. Most of the time hardware of 3-4 years old will be fully supported by GNU/Linux. I have never encountered hardware issues with GNU/Linux on older systems.

I think your problem will be the fact that you're used to MS Windoze. It will require a bit of learning to use the GNU/Linux platform to the fullest. The internet is full of information you can use and of course you can get back here if you have questions.