Sorry, I know these are really really really basic questions, but thank you for looking anyway.

Question #1 Almost every Linux Distributions I have looked at require you to have a 386 processor. Does this mean that say a Pentium II 233 Mhz Processor from an older laptop will not work?

Question #2 The Linux Distributions I have looked at support X Windows. Does this mean that after everything has been configured I can say start up my computer and won't be shown a unix prompt, it'll boot up to the X Windows interface?

Question #3 I've been looking at Slackware as my first distribution. I've read the instructions on their site carefully, and I'm pretty sure I can do it if there aren't any major surprises. However, are there any major surprises that aren't mentioned? Is this a good choice or am I starting myself off in the deep end?

Question #4 Have I made any major errors in my phrasing of the above questions? English is my native language, unfortuantely tech is not (yet).

Thank You Very Much,

~Deki

Ok. First, welcome to the forum! Let me try to answer your questions here.

1. I am not 100% positive here, but I would say you need at least a 386 to run linux. The The 386 was the first processor to use a 32bit address bus, which I would say, you need to run Linux.

2. Yes. Once you configure everything you can boot to an X environment. However, you would make your life easier if you boot to a prompt and type 'startx'. This way, if you have X troubles, its easy to get to a prompt to fix it. It's also makes your box a little more secure. You'll have to do a bit of script editing to make Slack boot to X directly however, but don't let that scare you. Thats all part of the experiance, and you will grow to love it

3. I say go for it. I wasted time using other distro's and should have went right to Slack. It has a little steeper learning curve, but if you really want to learn Linux, Slackware is the way to go. I almost learned nothing until I jumped into Slack. I now have a much more stable, customised, and enjoyable setup than I could have ever hoped for.

4. You did very well 1st time out A lot of n00bs come in like "how do I install Linux..." which aggravates Linux users when people don't take the slightest bit of initiative for themselves. Getting others to do your homework is definitely NOT what Linux is about. It sounds like you have done yours.

Get started, and come back when you need help. Enjoy!

Nope ... that means i386 is the minimum requirement
Any newer Intel-(or fully compatible) CPU will work.

That's distro-dependent. In most cases it's
likely to give you X by default, though (Slack
is an exception - you have to manually enable
this feature after install).

I've only had troubles with Slack twice,
and has many installations on a variety
of machines.
Slack 9 on an PIIX chipset - I had
to disable DMA during install. Slack
9.1 had a problem with one drive where
the BIOS had LBA enabled, lilo
wouldn't install without the linear
option.


Cheers,
Tink

All i have to say is good luck! wish i had gone with slack right away. Mandrake wasn't worth my time really. If ya want, read up on http://www.tldp.org/LDP/lfs/html/index.html to learn more about linux once you've got it setup.

oops, sorry thats http://www.tldp.org/LDP/intro-linux/html/index.html

I don't have anything to add regarding the questions and won't repeat that, but I would second Scruff's comment there. The way I look at it, no question is too basic or too 'dumb' (two different things) as long as you've done some research and are just getting more opinions or clarifying things you don't understand. What is annoying is someone asking something that is on the first line of a manpage and they're asking, not because they don't understand, but because they haven't even bothered to look. It does sound like you've done some reading and I think you and Slack will get along fine. All Slack takes is (a lot of) research and a text editor, basically.

SERIOUS HELP NEEDEDE!!!!!!!!!
My little bro' left me a Linux box with X windows on it. I can barely navigate the thing and I'm still trying to figure out how to get some shit running. I have these questions:

#1 How the hell do I find out which distribution of Linux I'm operating????
#2 I've been trying to install and run Edonkey 2k , I've put the damn downloaded file in it's own directory xzf - ed it and then tried running it but the command line tells me there is no such command! I've tried
bash [filename] and nothing happens but "no such command" the file is right the f@$! there! I almost want to rip out all my hair, format the hard drive (if I knew how!) and live in Dos (era '93) for the rest of my life....
I've got a book called linux in a nutshell but none of the commands will do me a bit of good if I can't articulate them properly!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Any spoon feeding websites out there that show step by step instrux of how the heck to do simple operatives such as running a program. So far all I've been able to get to run is mplayer.
hah, easy enough mplayer [filename] easy enough, why the f#$^ isn't edonkey running!!!???

Sorry for the rant, but I'm trying hard and I can't get any specific info from the system itself or most websites, and when I try the dadgum thing says bash: no such command.
$@#$%@#%#$^$%&^&^%^^$%^&^%&*&*&^$%@#$@#$@#%#$linux!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

First of all, welcome to LQ.

Secondly, it would be nice if you started your
own thread rather than hijacking someting obviously
unrelated.

Thirdly save us your foul language. It's not in
place, and certainly not appreciated.

As for your edonkey... do
ls -l [filename]
and check whether it's flagged executable.
Output should look like
-rwx------

Next, if you're root or your current user hasn't
got . in his path, you need to preceed the name
with ./
try
./[filename]
if it's flagged executable, or
sh filename
if it's not

Cheers,
Tink

It is absolutely amazing that this was posted directly beneath mine and digiot's posts about not doing your homework while simultaneously hijacking a completely unrelated thread ........

A Pentium II 233 Mhz will certainly work, as will any 80486 of any kind or model, any Pentium of any kind or model, any Celeron of any kind or model, any Cyrix of any kind or model and any AMD K6, Duron or Athlon microprocessor. That is just about everything out there. The 386 (80386) is a very early microprocessor. Whether your Pentium II 233 is practical or not is a different story. That would depend more on the size of your hard drive than the microprocessor itself, given the processor.