hi,

I have Intel Pentium-3 processor, 800MHz, 128MB RAM (8MB shared graphics), sis630 motherboard, 40GB Hard-disk.

I want to install Linux to my system. Which linux distro rehat/fedora is better to install?

Redhat9/Fedora-core6/Fedora-core-7 ???


My purpose is to play audio,mp3 and see movies,(mainly entertainment). I also have a ntfs partition, where I have stored lot of files. Which distro (redhat/fedora) I have to use to acess the files stored in the ntfs drive?


Thanks in advance.

I would go for Fedora 6/7 because of livna yum channels. There you will find all you need to play various multimedia files and to have access to ntfs. You will probably find more information on the net for Fedora 6 because 7 has been just released.

What OS are you currently running on that? I can't imagine it's anything newer than Windows 98. If so, your computer must be slower than molasses.

I strongly urge you to get more RAM. I have an old P3 from 1999 with 384MB of RAM (it's not being used right now). When I lased used in in 2004, I ran Fedora Core 4 (with both GNOME and KDE) on it (albiet slowely).

As far as Fedora 6/7 vs RedHat 9 are concerned, I have to ask.. where are you finding RedHat9 these days? That's gotta be 6 years old.

It's no longer supported so that's reason enough not to bother with it. You won't see any security updates (and kernel updates seem to come out every few weeks these days).

On the other hand, RH9 would probably accomodate your lack of RAM situation.

256MB is an absolute bare minimum for Desktop Linux these days (my own personal mimimum for any current Linux distro these days would be 512MB (especially if you're sharing it with your graphics).

And.. with that little RAM you'd do well to use a less RAM-hungry Desktop Environment/Window Manager. GNOME and KDE don't qualify there.

I'd sugget XFCE or if you're into minimilasim, Fluxbox. Either can be installed from Fedora's repositories.

As far as Fedora 6 vs Fedora 7 is concerned, the advantage to the former is that there is more documentatin out there. The advantage to the latter is that it's easier to inistall and maintain than it's predecessors.

Perssonaly, if I were you ....I'd go with Xubuntu.

RedHat9 seems to be everywhere--maybe because it was packaged in a lot of books??

I also say look beyond RedHat and Fedora--eg Mepis, PCLinuxOS, OpenSUSE, etc.

I have a P3 with 384M RAM--it has no trouble with any Linux that I put on it.

I would strongly urge you _not_ to get RedHat. I took this from signature of J.W. (one of the moderators here):There are no security fixes being issued for RedHat9 anymore. For this reason alone, you should get fedora.

If performance is an issue, use XFCE instead of gnome, and buy more RAM.

Those books must be old.

So then 512 would blow yuou away. lol

But 128 (as he has) isn't goig to get him very far with most distros as they default to GNOME or KDE. He really needs more RAM. But if that's not an option than GNOME and KDE won't be options either. Personaly I'd go with XFCE via Xubuntu in that case.

senior moment---arrrghh!!
My P3 is 192M RAM--not 384

I am so used to 1G on the main machine that I can't think in such small numbers.....Perhaps it is my brain that needs more RAM...

So the correct statement is that I have P3 with 192M of RAM and has no trouble with any Linux distro.

I would agree that you need more ram. I have a P3 1ghz that runs much better with 768 than 512.

Redhat9 is dead, do not even consider it. Support for FC6 will be dropped in September(?) when Fedora 8 is released. If you install Fedora 7 XFC is now on the install list. Centos 5 (Redhat with logos removed) was released a couple of months ago and will have support for 5 years.

Good Luck
Lazlow