Good day, Linux gurus!

I have an old laptop Compaq Armada (Processor 166 MHz, 147 MB RAM, 3.1 GB HDD) and was collecting dust in one of my drawers. At first I wanted to get rid of it, but my daughter wanted "a real computer", not just a barbie laptop. So I decided to prepare for her to play with. I wanted to load windows 95 or 98 on it, but I think a Linux is a better choice. She only needs to play a couple of games and maybe to connect to the internet.
Does anyone know a "light" distribution that comes with GUI interface and works fine on such an old machine?
Thank you!

I'd recommend using PuppyLinux.
By far it's among the better Operating Systems for old hardware.

======================
Thank you osdeals!

I'll give it a try.

Well.... I'm not sure if there is a problem with the laptop or I'm doing something wrong...
I tried Puppy Linux and it fails installing when checking for the IDE
the error is as follows:
Any ideea what is that mean?
My installation of SuSE failed as well, with something simillar.
Strangest thing is... I can install Windows 95/98 with no problems.
I don't like to conclude the Windows is more clement with the hardware, than Linux is.

Please help.

Thank you!
<i>dantux</i>

Here are some other distros to try:

Distros for older Hardware:

Vector Linux 4.3
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

SLAX Live CD
http://www.slax.org/

BeaFanatIX
http://bea.cabarel.com/

Elive:
http://www.elivecd.org/

Deli
http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/

you might also want to check out:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://www.tuxmobil.org/

to see what other users have done with your model of laptop

Jake

Hi Jake!

Thank you so much for your reply!
I managed to get puppy linux installed by giving "ide=nodma" option to the boot. But I'm inclined to try something else. I know I can install the Live CD to the hard drive, but I would like something to be installed and designed for normal Hard Drive run.
Thank you so much guys for trying to help out. Really appreciate it.

dantux

I have installed Puppy on an old Dell Latitude laptop, and the install option went just fine. It's not designed with that in mind, but it's one of the easier ways to get a fairly complete system up and running on old hardware. I ditched it because I like Debian style package management, and decided to install ubuntu server (CLI system) then manually install xorg, fluxbox, and all of the apps.

I managed in the end to get everything working (installed puppy on the hard drive).... except two little things:

• I ran the ALSA sound wizard and I (think) configured my sound card. If I use "cdplay" command line, I can play an audio CD and the sound is great. I also have sound when playing the CD with XFree CD Player (something like that). But all the other applications... are mute. Even games. Xine player... makes a bunch of little noise and that's it. I have no ideea what's going on.
• The other issue, is... the user. I don't want my daughter to run Linux as "root". I tried to add a user and I succeded. But the user created like that... only has acces to the system without GUI. And most of the programs don't work due to file permissions.
  Is there any way to create a regular user on Puppy Linux? The distro looks exactly what I am looking for and it's a pitty I can't do it because of a couple little things.

Thank you guys for your replies.

dantux