My dad asked me to install linux on an old PC he bought at work for $10. It has 256 mb. of Ram, 3.9 GB HDD, and a 333 MHz pentium II processor.

After checking the system requirements for several distributions, I decided DSL would be the best. But my intent is to later install Dreamlinux after making some hardware upgrades.

The Windows 98 on the computer didn't work and I tried a restore disk but it was from a different computer so that also didn't work. So I downloaded DSL and burned the ISO to a cd and put it on the computer. Whenever I get to the install menu it says to press enter to install, so I do that. But then it displays some code on a black background and suddenly it all just goes blank. I also tried DreamLinux and Ubuntu and it didn't work, so I'm guessing theres something wrong with the computer.

How do I go about installing DSL on this system?

Thanks for any help

It seems that you've got some broken hardware.

Why did the Win98 installation stop working?

Have you made a memory check with memtest86 to check if the RAM-stick is ok?

With your hardware configuration (if all OK) you should be able to run most Linux distributions - but do no expect top performance with the KDE or GNOME desktop environments.

with that old of a computer you might have to tell xorg how to configure the video card. typically there are hack codes at the screen you are told to hit "enter" to install. there, in several distros, are options to hit F1 or something along that line to see the hack/cheat codes to make adjustments.

Unfortunately, I don't have the slightest idea of what you guys are talking about. (but thats nothing a google search won't fix).

But I did get Windows installer to work and began the setup, I just need to find a Windows 98 product key.