Amd K6-2

[ToWork]

I'm trying to install suse 10.2 desktop media and i was wondering if my processor is fast enouch to handle this install AMD K6-2. I have been having alot of problems mainly with it crashing around the packages installations. I also want to know were to go for the check sum number so i can verify my copy is good. It checks out oin the disk check utility. Can some one help please. Thanks chris

[coopstah13]

amd k6-2 is pretty old processor, but there are other factors, in particular ram, i'm guessing with an old cpu you don't have much ram, you will probably have to run a lighter distro than suse, i'd recommend a debian net install, then you can install only what you need and it will be pretty light on the resources, especially if you use a window manager like icewm, fluxbox, blackbox, etc

[IsaacKuo]

I agree--the main issue is probably RAM. How much RAM does this computer have?

[ToWork]

There is 256 mg of ram which is pretty low. I was hoping to install samba and a mp3 player but that is all i wish to use this computer for something to share files from pc to mac.

[IsaacKuo]

Wow! 256 megs of RAM is actually quite impressive for a machine of that vintage! 256megs of RAM is plenty of RAM for most modern linux distributions. SUSE may be on the heavyweight side, but even so I'd suspect that either your CD or your CD-ROM drive is the cause of your problems (assuming you created the CD on a different computer, I'd suspect the old CD-ROM drive before the CD).

Does this computer have a wired ethernet connection to the internet? I'm guessing it does, based on your intended use. If so, then a netinstall of Debian may avoid your problems with a flakey CD-ROM drive. This is a small installer CD which downloads most of the software straight from Debian's software repositories via the Internet.

Do you know the processor speed? If it's less than 200mhz, then you may have some issues playing mp3's smoothly. One of my machines is a 120mhz Pentium and most mp3's don't play smoothly on it.

If you're new to Linux, you'll likely want to do a full Desktop Workstation install, including the default heavyweight GNOME desktop. With Debian, 256megs is plenty of RAM for the GNOME desktop. Later, after you get comfortable with Linux, you can try out a lightweight desktop environment that won't eat up much RAM.

If you're familiar with Linux or you want to challenge yourself by learning the text command line interface from the start, then you can do a minimal base install. This will be incredibly efficient, but of course you'll be learning how to do everything on a more "nuts-and-bolts" level.