Help needed.
I am helping my friend, who is totally amateur with computers, and has got an old laptop for free and want's to use it for surfing and reading the mails.
Problem is, someone has installed windows xp to that poor old thing and it takes ages to boot it not to mention to use it. It may have some viruses etc, but because specs are PIII 600MHz, 192MB Ram, the easiest way to solve things is to install linux, right?

I am experienced windows user and have installed ubuntu couple times, but I haven't got time to really use and learn it. He, on the other hand, knows that by pressing certain thing on screen window opens and he can surf.
So, I have a long weekend to install some fast, easy to use distro and configure it with my current skills so that he never has to update it manually or figure out anything and everything works. And it doesn't hurt if it looks good too

Here's what I've been thinking about:

Xubuntu - fast, but is it fast enough? plenty packages and good compability. Can it be made simple enough?

Zenwalk - I really like the ideology behind this. It is small and fast, and hopefully easy, but does everything work?

PCLinuxOS - New and shiny looking. Installs easily and everything works? Haven't heard much bad about this one, but is it fast?

Slackware, VectorLinux - Fast ones, but can I configure them so, that the use would be easy?


So, the main things are speed and user-friendliness.
Any comments or suggestions?
(1.st post, be nice )

I have a PIII 160mb 733mhz, and the following distros run really well (read fast) on it:

-Ubuntu Feisty
-Xubuntu Feisty
-PCLinuxOS 2007
-SimplyMEPIS 6.5
-Arch Linux
-Puppy Linux 2.17 & 3.0
-DSL 3.4 & 4.0

The following were usable but a little slower

-OpenSUSE (Kerry Beagle needs to be disabled)
-Kubuntu Feisty

The only distros to be too slow were Fedora 7 and OpenSUSE 10.2 (10.3 is a huge improvement). If you're using KDE, The window decorations and KDE style have a LOT to do with speed. You'll even notice this when previewing the styles, so choose something light and you'll be good to go.

That being said, I didn't notice that much of a speed increase from Ubuntu to Xubuntu. Ubuntu runs really fast on P3s.

SilentSam, I found (K)(X)ubuntu ran super slow on my Pentium 3 @ 600 mhz, with 256 mb of ram

I've been using linux for a while now and I think I'm ready for a "harder" distro. I'm thinking of slackware or gentoo. My question is from your experience which would you recommend. I have one small problem I only have one (possibly two) blank cds. I know (or I'm under the impression) that slackware uses multiple cd. I do have a wired connection so that isnt a problem. Thanks in advance.

2 CDs is plenty for Slackware. Or 1 for Gentoo. They are very different approaches to installing and running Linux so it's not really fair to compare them.

That's really odd. I run Kubuntu Feisty on an AMD Athlon K6 500MHz 384 mb ram (DDR), and it runs quite quickly. I'd almost say that ram has more of an effect on the speed of the distro than processor speed, and your comp has more than my P3.

Xubuntu and Ubuntu simply flew on my P3. Kubuntu was quite a bit slower. The P3 uses SDRAM too. I've since wiped both for Arch though.

What distro did you settle on for your P3?

Moved: This thread is more suitable in <Distributions> and has been moved accordingly to be merged with the
"Which distro" megathread...

Gentoo doesn't need a cd, you can install it from an already installed distro in a chroot
I would try both, seeing as how Gentoo doesn't need a cd, you can just install slackware with the first 2 cds, the 2rd cd is not nessecary

Can you point me to a good guide on how to install slackware (with two cds) the ones Ive seen seems to require more than two. I'm DLing Gentoo now but I would much rather try slack. I have that eager feeling i get from time to time to try a new distro so I dont want to wait to buy cds.

Slack only NEEDS the first CD. The second one (in 12, that is) only
has kde, tetex, x and xap ... you COULD grab those after the install
via network if you want to avoid burning it.


Cheers,
Tink

Thanks. Downloading the slackware disc one now. Thanks for you help.

Pleasure :}

Hope you can work wget and/or links and/or lynx, so you can get
a gooey in the long run ;}

See you in http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...splay.php?f=14



Cheers,
Tink

I know my way around lynx and wget. I found that second cd so Im going to get one and two. Will it prompt me or something at the end of one to insert two or do it use a different approach?

Nope - that's what it does. Asks you to shuffle them.


Cheers,
Tink

Thanks I found shilo's guide and it seems its going to help me out alot. As far as installing gentoo through slack will it be on a different partition or take over the system. I also want to partition my slack system as /, /usr, /home, is this a good setup or do you recommend another setup.

P.S

Sorry if I'm asking to many questions.