I think my mother is finally willing to give a try to Linux, but his computer starts to be a little old.

She has a Pentium III 500 Mhz with 96 Mb of RAM. Is HD is 13 Gb I think. It is running, believe it or not, windows XP (It's very very slow, but it works).

Now, I'm seeking for a distro that would be suitable for that computer. It would be nice to be able to run Gnome or KDE because my mother wants a DE that is very easy to use (like the windows one).

She passes the most of his time on the computer with his web browser (she actually uses Firefox) and his word processor (she uses Word, but it's going to change!).

If a distro like Mandrake do the job correctly on 96 Mb of RAM, it would be nice because it's perfect for a perfect newbie like my mother. It would be nice if I can prevent the OS of swapping all the time (I know it's the normal way of doing things when the RAM is full, but his computer running winXP is not doing it so often).

Thanks

Mandrake 9.1 would run ok on it (I don't like 9.2 myself). I have an old P500 at my mom's for the family to use running Mandrake 9.1 and has ran well for quite some time now.

suse and libranet


thats what i give to newbies (my friends) both have great hardware dection and are great platforms for going deeper into the linux world.

I havn't tired Suse, but i would definately recommend Libranet. Run very fast, and it's stable. Check out some of the reviews: http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...php?product=99

MR

Im am no expert...

but wouldnt slack be a lot better for a less powerful computer than Suse or Mandrake?

he is making the box for his mom.... it would be best to keep a rather user friendly distro on it

I'm still a newbie, and I'm not going to presume to make any kind of prediction for your case, but I can at least tell you what I've seen.

I'm running RedHat 7.2 on my P2 333MHz machine (128MB SDRAM). I am, of course, having lots of trouble with it, but not because of resource problems. Just networking stuff. Also, I am using WinXP on a couple of 233 machines (128MB SDRAM). They are, of course, slightly unstable at times, but it's hard to say whether or not the hardware is at fault. But they do still run, and well enough for the patient (or poor, like myself).

Memory means a lot, from what I've seen, on Mandrake 8.1. I had it on a 233MHz/64MB SDRAM and didn't even use it because it was too slow. Then I happened across another 64MB stick and it made enough of a difference that I started using it again.

Well, I tried. Good luck!

forgot to mention above - my install sizes were from 1.5Gb to 2Gb, so if you've got 13Gb I wouldn't worry about it.



I have a question for anyone who happens across this - what distro could I run on a 50MHz/4MB RAM laptop with (I think) 500Mb of disk space? Just curious. I've got this old laptop and nothing to do with it...

Wow! Sweet machine! Maybe try out DSL - damnsmalllinux.org It's only 50 mbs - I think it's meant to run on those small cut CDs but you could probably find a way to use it for your purposes