Hi,

Can anyone answer me this. What is the best distribution and version of linux to install on the following machine...

Intel Pentium 300
64 megs of RAM
Rage AGP Graphics card
USB 2.0 (maybe 1.0 not sure)
HD > 4 Gb

Also a must is per user security settings as this machine is located in a public area (actually a youth group). The main function of the machine will be word processing and internet surfing... which is via Dial up 56k modem but may later included ADSL...

Thanks in advance...

any modern distribution should be fine, just don't do anything too fancy, i.e. kde or gnome.

Libranet or Vector Linux would be my top choices for a machine of this class.

you could also try out SuSE since you're in the UK, I hear is real popular over there, and I think it's probably one of the most robust user-friendly distros, very competitive/better? than redhat. i run SuSE 7.3 on my dual celly 300mhz system, with quite a bit of ram, but i dont think you should have too much of a problem. kde3 seems to run quite stable, just tweak down the graphics and such as low as possible. make a bare minimum install... X, kde, open office, apps.. and add as you go. pick up SuSE in the stores (usu get tons of docs, support, etc) or do an ftp install...
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/modules...ticle&sid=3775

I have exactly the same specs as you ! And I suggest you install a "light" distribution, a distro which is not bloated with eye-candy stuffs like Gnome or KDE (Gnome2 is installed on my machine - with Metacity - and it's not fast, though it's usable). I suggest you install a tiny and light WindowManager (*Box - Blackbox, Fluxbox, OpenBox ... , Xfce, PekWM, WindowMaker or sth like this). My distribution is a Debian Woody which permits you not to install things you don't want to. Other lights (and famous !) distros includes : Slackware ... That's all. All other "famous" distros are, IMHO, too bloated for this type of machine. And all other "light" distros aren't famous at all (Crux for example) and a bit hard to install.

I hope this will help you to decide. Remember that only YOU can make your own opinion ...

I have a system like that too and I began with installing Mandrake, no problem, it even works with Gnome, but slow, yes... Mandrake is easy to set up, and you don't have to install KDE or Gnome. I'd say go for IceWM or XFce. I haven't tried LIbranet, but from what I've read that would also be an excellent choice, it's basically Debian, but with added easy graphical installer and admin tools.

You should consider Lycoris. A little distro that is making alot of headway in the Linux desktop world. I had it installed on a P-233mhz, 64mb RAM, 4meg video card and it ran wonderfully. The only problem you might run into with an y distro is your modem. Most modems are winmodems, and with few exceptions will not work with Linux. Hardware modems are however supported pretty darn well. I run Suse 8.1 and absolutely love it, but it might be a bit to much for a computer like that. If you ever get a faster PC, definitely go Suse as it is easy enough for noobs like me, but also has all the dev and high end apps yoou could want. And games? Suse has little time killer games coming out the ears! Anyhow, good luck in your quest!

well, my specs then were

p2, 350mhz
64 mb sdram
onboard graphics 4mb
6gb

at this point I begin with older version of red hat , RH 6.0/7.1, its ok, then I switched to Slackware 8.0, thats better,
then I upgrade my specs by adding more rams (now its 288 mb ram + 60 gb h.disk) to dual boot between win98 and slack 8.0 (my primary linux distro) and played around with Red Hat 8.0 (though RH 8.0 is sooooo slow on my system)

my advice is, try to get lighter distro, or older version, since lots of newer distros are heavy in graphics (clear and pretty example: RedHat 8.0) which is suitable with better pc