minimum system Requirements?

I have a friend using an old PC, with P4 1.6G, 256MB ram, 20GB hard disk, no DVD drive but a CD burner, on board intel graphic card, LAN. He said that running XP on it is slow, and seek for advice, I told him to install linux, and I recommend him to install Mandriva 2009 GNOME or LXDE which fits low profile environment. Later, I went to the Mandriva's web site, they said that the minimum ram should be 512M, and DVD drive is required. The reason I recommend Mandriva is easy to use and I think Mandriva got the best compatibility on hardware among all distro. but after reading the system requirements, should I recommend Mandriva anymore?

RAM required may definetly be 512MB.
reuirement for DVD drive can be resolved. u can install linux from .iso file residing on ur hard disk also. have a look...(if you find any thing interesting)

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Originally Posted by steven.chien

I have a friend using an old PC, with P4 1.6G, 256MB ram, 20GB hard disk, no DVD drive but a CD burner, on board intel graphic card, LAN. He said that running XP on it is slow, and seek for advice, I told him to install linux, and I recommend him to install Mandriva 2009 GNOME or LXDE which fits low profile environment. Later, I went to the Mandriva's web site, they said that the minimum ram should be 512M, and DVD drive is required. The reason I recommend Mandriva is easy to use and I think Mandriva got the best compatibility on hardware among all distro. but after reading the system requirements, should I recommend Mandriva anymore?

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512 is usually a good rule of thumb, but as long as the distro is using a lightweight desktop (like LXDE, Fluxbox, FVWM, etc) it's not so much of an issue. I don't see a reason why a DVD drive would be required if you can still download the single-disk version on CD. If it works on your buddy's machine, to hell with the system requirements, I say. ;)

Thanks! I think I will frist try to run the live CD and see whats next!

IF there still are boot options like "vga16" or "vgalo"it would help you to boot install disk with low RAM.. used to be 3-4 years a go (versions 2005,10.x)
or
download old version where he can easily install regardless of low RAM, make minimal install (at least with 10.0 was still possible to select individual packages) and update step-to-step to 2009 (lots of time and playing with urpmi included)
or try alternatives.. If he likes playing around with very different things then hint:OpenBSD runs generally very nicely on old computers.. never tested X Windows on my BSD box though.FreeBSD is probably better for desktop

I don't think so, my classmate is no more than a user who surfs the Internet and do some lite office work, he don't have any "advance" Knowledge, so I need to pick him a easiest to use distro. and with the minimum problem(drivers) need to deal with!

Thank's for your advice,