hi guys, im new to linux. I have an old PC, i want to install a linux os in it. the specs are; 500Mhz (Pentium 3 / AMD k6-2), RAM 196MB, AGP graphics card. I want to ask you guys which distro is best suits my old PC. I want it to work with C Programming, surf the net, and with KDE. thank you guys. Hope you can help me.

You need more RAM. I would not personally run KDE on anything with less than 1gb, sorry.

Puppy, SliTaz, AntiX, TinyCore, etc. should all run fine on your hardware. They use "lightweight" environments like JWM, Ice, Openbox, etc.

+1 for AntiX

not kde with those specs

I would definitely suggest puppy or something similar. Arch would probably work with something like fluxbox. Slackware probably would too, and fluxbox would be part of a default install.

I second rokytnji -- antiX-M8.5-i486 -- to be exact.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...347/page3.html

Still, add more RAM and look to see the maximum PIII MHz you r mobo will support. I have PC100 RAM and 800MHz PIIIs if you need or see eBay.

Vectorlinux would run fast on that, but I have never used it for my day to day computing so can't say how easy and efficient it would be for that.

I have a laptop with 1500Mhz processor and only 254 memory, and Pclinuxos Gnome or Suse 11.2 Gnome were recommended to me. Downloading the Pclinuxos Gnome now as I run Pclinuxos 2010KDE for my day to day use.

Have fun :-)

With those specs, forget about KDE.

Maybe try something like Xfce, or even a plain window manager without a full desktop environment.

I would give Debian with LXDE-Desktop a try.

thank you guys. maybe I'll try antix or puppy.

I have a 600Mhz pentium-2 with 128MB ram 16MB ati graphic card it runs slackware-12.2 faster than a 1.5Ghz celron with 256MB ram shared ram graphic card

so slackware-12.2 will run just fine on this machine as long as it doesn't use shared graphic ram

How is that possible?

It's possible if the Celeron has a smaller CPU cache than the Pentium 2.

Having an integrated or dedicated video chip shouldn't be factor unless you're using compositing extensions.

Hi,

Welcome to LQ!

You could always roll back to earlier distributions with that class of hardware, circa 2002 or earlier. If you can, max the memory and use the lightest DE or desktop. You could use KDE but it's going to be slow with a modern GNU/Linux.

And yes, Slackware could be used on the hardware as long as the legacy hardware can be supported. You could try some of the current GNU/Linux small footprint but again legacy support may bite you. Don't forget the possibility of BIOS issues with newer GNU/Linux.
BIOS cylinder & Block read limitations will be two things you will have to work around with newer GNU/Linux.

Look here for Slackware versions.

The CPU speed is not to much of a problem: I've run Fedora with Gnome on 600MHz. 196MB is a limitation, though. The ones that will run easily in that which I've tried are

Absolute (installing new software sometimes tricky): Icewm or Fluxbox
Puppy (rather unconventional, single user system): JWM
Vector Light (I had a problem with the graphical installer, but the text one was fine): JWM or Fluxbox.