which is best for my slow pc

reveille · 07-23-2004, 01:46 PM

hi, i have a 166mhz, 16mb ram, floppy, cd rom, and 1 gig hard drive. i am looking for a linux distro that would run on this type of computer. it would mostly be used for instant messaging using gaim. any ideas? im open to any, just bought a 100 pack or cd-r's

enygma · 07-23-2004, 01:55 PM

I would probably give the Debian minimal install cd a shot. Should be a 130MB ISO approx and installs what is necessary to get a base system up and running, then launches apt to install the rest of your software via the internet. Of course, it won't install anything from the net unless you choose to do so, and what apps you wish to install.

mugstar · 07-23-2004, 04:54 PM

Any distro which runs on a 386 or 486 chip would do, such as Debian (as mentioned), Slackware, SuSE among the biggies. You'd have to cut out a lot of software from the default install to fit one of these on a 1 gig drive.

The main thing is not to try and run KDE or Gnome, but stick to the lightest window manager you can find: fluxbox, for example.

However, with so little RAM, I would suggest you try and find a console IM app, in which case you needn't bother installing a window manager or an X server at all.

2damncommon · 07-23-2004, 05:15 PM

You pretty much need to consider console only install with 16 MB RAM.
Perhaps check out Deli Linux.
The console IM that Damn Small Linux uses is Naim.