I am brand new to Linux. I have read a bunch of stuff on the web and I am very interested in getting started. I think I am going to go with Mandrake but my question has more to do with the computer to put it on. I have a Dell PII 400 right now but for business reasons, I can't risk putting Linux on there and screwing anything up (I know, I know, it would probably be okay but I can't take the risk). So, I am looking for a used cheap (less than $400) computer to put Linux on. Would a PII 400 be sufficient? I am not into gaming that much, I really just want something that will run Linux at a reasonable speed. Any suggestions/corrections appreciated.

pentium 400 should do just fine.. if your going to be learning alot of command line, any machine can handle that.. I loaded redhat on a 75mhz once.. ran just fine...

my main fileserver running redhat 7.2 is a p!!! 450 and it runs like a dream. so yeah, a 400 would be good. :-)

and might i recommend redhat over mandrake? just a personal preference though... but i find redhat to be a little more in depth but just as easy to use.

i'd tell you to go with slackware if i could even handle it. but i'm still struggling myself. ;-)

like yesterday I got for my father a Pentium III 450 MHz with 128 Mb SDRAM for a symbolic price Dell, first of all I got rid off the sticker "Designed for MS Windows NT and MS Windows98"then I put Mandy 8.1 on it the same night, took about half an hour or so, just did basic install, put Powered by RedHat sticker (Mandy is a derivative of RedHat, isn't it?), and on weekend I am planning to add this PC to my home network.

I use SuSe with KDE and StarOffice52 on a Cx300 and everything is as fast as it was in Win98 on the same machine. (To be more precise: the Internet browsing and downloads are even faster)