need help desiding wut distro
 

i have an old pc. i think its a 97.heres the info
232mhz
40mb ram
4 mb video mem
6gb hd
cd & floppy
currently running knoppix 3.2 on swap partition

wut distro wood be best for this situation. i already tryed mandrake 9.1 but it freezes when loggin in. n e sugestions.by the way this is not my main pc.

Slackware 9.0 :) Make sure to get a version which comes with a book if you can afford it. eg: http://www.linuxstore.se/html/artikel/7056.html

This is a swedish store link. Otherwise, this tutorial is pretty useful if you don't want to purchase the CD-Rom + Book Slackware

http://members.cox.net/laitcg/new/intro.html

It's relatively hard for a beginner, but it rocks if you love reading and editing and want get the most from your configuration and learn a true Linux/Unix system like :).

Good luck

will it run good on the pc i described?

Definitely, Slackware 9.0 asks for a minimum of 386 processor and 16 of RAM. I'm running it in a 2GHZ with 512 of RAM and in a Pentium 166 with 32 of RAM. It's a very versatile distribution :).

Check their faq here:

http://www.slackware.com/faq/

Most of the programs to Slack needs to be compiled, so that gives an extra boost for older Hardwares and incredible speed for newer ones :)

Again, it's not so user friendly as mandrake or redhat. But following that tutorial I gave you above will be an incredible journey in a new OS :)

With that computer, which is very similar to mine, you will have a hard time running the latest versions of KDE or GNOME. I'm running the ones that come with Red Hat 7.2 and they take a long time to come up. The best bet is to just run a window manager such as Window Maker, fluxbox, icewm, fvwm, etc.

As far as the best distro? I like Red Hat 7.2. If you or a friend is on high speed internet with a burner you can download what you want from http://www.linuxiso.org

Basic Linux? Damm Small Linux?

You might find something suitable at Distrowatch - currently around 140 Linux distributions there:

Click here to go to Distrowatch

darthtux is right. Using lighter programs will do great too :)

X = Blackbox, Fluxbox, Icewm, WindowMaker
Browser = Mozilla Firebird or Dillo
e-mail client = sylpheed

Yet, they are all nice and fast :)

Go with something hard. All those "easy configuration tools" are bogus. They never work as well as learning how to do stuff yourself. Also, distros like RH and MDK default to tons of unneccesary services that are gonna choke yer oldschool computer. For your situation, the benefits of a light/fast version of linux are going to make all the difference, usability wise.

ok thanks guys...thatnk god the pc i described isnt my only 1..(i got a 2.4 ghz wit 512mb ram)

slackware didnt work....so i downloaded a lindows iso