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I'm trying to find the best version of linux for a Dell Dimension 8100, Pentium 4 256 MB Ram. currently running XP service pack 2 but its too slow. i want to use it for trans-coding video files, playing Minecraft, and internet.
You can run any Linux that has a low resource desktop or window manager. For a machine like that I would recommend antiX Linux, it is especially made for older machines and should run really fine on that machine. It is based on Debian, so that you have a wide range of software available.
You can also try Vector Linux, it is based on Slackware and known to run good on older hardware.
If you want to go more "mainstream" you can also try Lubuntu, that should also run fine.
I don't think you're going to have much luck running Minecraft on there, regardless of how light the OS is. That is a big fat resource hog, unless you have a dual core processor and 2gb of RAM, don't even bother.
Even modern internet usage is going to require more than 256mb of RAM if you want it to be responsive and not run into swap space constantly. It isn't really dependent on the OS, modern web pages are just resource intensive.
I also doubt a change of OS is going to do much for trans-coding video either. That P4 is just old and wasn't all that great when it was new.
Linux has the ability to run efficiently on older hardware, but it is not magic.
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