Hi, the configuration above works fine with Win 98SE, but I would like to use Debian.
The HW configuration:
-P2@350mhz processor
-bx440 mb
-32MB TNT2 video card
-10GB HDD

I would appreciate the input of someone who used debian on this kind of PC before e.g. what distro should I use, XManager or desktop environment in order to make it functional.
It's going to be used mainly for internet surfing, playing music, messenger chat, watching a movie occasionaly, I mean it's for my young daughter.

Thanx!

The number of distributions that work well on a machine with less than 256 MB RAM is only a little bit larger than it was ten years ago. Most distributions require at least 256 MB RAM to run well. You should go to a web site with a list of distributions that you can search by various criteria and get a list of distributions that work well with 64 MB RAM or less. One good choice would be Slackware.

http://slackware.com/getslack/

You may still have problems if you want to use a GUI. In a case like that you may want to use one of the very specialized distributions that are engineered to run in 50 MB or less. These often don't use the most popular applications. You can find these at the same web sites.

The web site that I use for finding Linux distributions that meet certain criteria is distrowatch.com.

http://distrowatch.com/

Thanks, I'll look into it deeper, my idea was that I could do it without a HW upgrade since nothing important depends on that machine, my inconvenience is that MS 98 needs service from time to time (too often), and linux is a steady fully customizable OS that hardly needs anything else but a power source to run.

I think I'll get back with more info when I figure out whether to upgrade the HW or find smth that fits and does the job with what I have.

Debian Etch will work fine. For the best combination of speed and functionality, you'd actually use this machine as a simple X terminal to remote log into a fast computer. It's fast enough to run lightweight software just fine, but as an X terminal it'd be faster (of course, that's "cheating" because it's actually the fast computer doing the work). Assuming you have a fast computer running gdm, it's as simple as going into gdm configuration and allowing remote logins. Then, on this slow computer go into the XDMCP remote login chooser in gdm. The problem, though, is that you don't get any sound by default.

That said, there's no reason not to also install everything needed to run this computer locally. I'd recommend the following install, after installing the default Desktop Workstation suite (which installs GNOME):

apt-get install icewm icewm-themes pcmanfm

Icewm is a nice lightweight window manager. You'll want to customize its menus a bit.

PCManFM is a slick little file manager which uses GtK. You'll want to customize the file associations.

Take a look at DSL http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/. It's rather lightweight. By default it's LiveCD (or USB-Key) but has an option to install to hard drive.

Or try DSL-N, it's little bigger, but i think it will feel itself nice on your hardware

I'll second DSL. Good little distro.

Debian will run on that box as well. So will Slackware or Zenwalk. Certainly won't set any speed records, but they'll run.

If anything, maybe just do a memory upgrade. I'm assuming it takes PC100 or something similar, and that stuff's dirt cheap.

Assuming that the motherboard will take more memory, memory for those systems is dirt cheap. I picked a 256mb dimm for $10 for my PIII 1ghz. If you can upgrade the memory to 256 (512 would be much better) your choices dramatically increase (from say 5 choices to 50+ choices).

Oh, wait--I didn't read carefully the first time and missed the "young" in there.

Is this computer going to be on the same LAN as a much faster computer, like your own? In that case, you should set up the computer as a dumb X terminal. The responsiveness and capabilities will be much faster, and you don't even need to upgrade any RAM. It will be almost as fast as your own computer.

Assuming your fast computer uses gdm, then simply go into gdm's GUI configuration and select a remote login option. You'll need to restart gdm; rebooting will work.

Then, install Debian on the slow computer, including gdm. You can use the XDMCP remote login chooser to connect to your fast computer.

I read a few reviews about and I think I'll give it a try. DSL I think is not so good with multimedia (streaming media, mp3 etc). Else I think I'll go with the X terminal solution, I run ETCH on my own PC and it can take a few requests more.

DSL has a multimedia player don't remember about video, but everything is ok with mp3