I know I allready asked this but this has a different condition. A few years aga I took apart a old computer thinking 'I'll never use it again' . Just yesterday I put it back together (when I took it apart I put the hard drive in my other comp, took me a while to remember where I put it). After wasting a few CDs (my iso recorder tried to burn it at 12x speed mine can only handle 1x but I'm patient) I got MINIX working. I like it but I need a GUI for it and lubuntu comes up sayin "The needed kernel could not be found." So that's out. I'm not sure about RAM (I think it's between 60 and 126 megs) Its a AMD 32 x86(6? I can never remember the order).
It's a compaq prisario (it has a promint sticker saying internet pc, I brok the network card when taking it apart so no Internet) saying made for windows 98 on the case and the CPU says made for windows 95 and NT. Posseses the ability to boot to CD (without external programs).
Amount of hard drive space or patrol ing is not a problem.
Well what's The distro for me? Oh I want it to install on hard drive. I know of some distros that only let you boot to cd. Any Linux or BSD is ok.

Try this: http://bit.ly/tfKF7f

Evo2.

1 members found this post helpful.

Ohh, a humorful 'let me google that for you' response. :S Pointless.

You can tell the RAM amount by checking the BIOS boot screen. (normally listed in kb so its a huge number, but its do-able) Sometimes you can tell the installed RAM from inside the BIOS as well, it depends on the BIOS.

You can also normally get the config from the compaq part number, its normally on a sticker on the case.

If you've only got 64MB (or less), you've not going to have many choices.

BTW, if it is an older AMD K6, K6-2/K6-3/Intel Pentium/Pentium MMX, none of the *buntu variants after 10.04 will work. 10.10 dropped support for i586 CPUs, only i686 works (Intel Pentium II or AMD athlon or newer CPUs)

I don't know how to enter bios on it... It dent even look like theres an option (looks like it cramed in every feature they think anyone would need. I was very surprised that it could boot to cd without help)
The sticker came off of the card when taking it apart...
The bios showed 'checking memory' and ended at 60megs after i put it back together.
I dought this makes a difference with a computer with such little ram but the drive cannot read write or boot to a DVD.
The sticker on the case is still there but I'm not at my house right now...

How does Microsoft do it? Seriously. WinXP runs faster on my current(the Dell one) computer than Kubuntu(and Lubuntu) Win98 Ran perfectly on that computer (with enough room for SimCity3000 and Roller Coaster Tycoon in the background)
I do have a copy of the WINDOWS folder for Win98 on my Dell comp if anyone knows how get 98 too boot on it...

I would recycle it and check Craigslist/Freecycle/Goodwill for a computer that's at least a Pentium 4 with 512mb RAM. That's a solid entry-level configuration that can run most distros OK and shouldn't cost you more than US$100 (and possibly FREE).

Windows XP and 98 run well on older hardware because they are 10 and 13 years old, respectively. The current Windows 7 won't run on your hardware any better than Ubuntu.

I've had great success with Slackware on older systems, including old Pentiums and PIIs. Otherwise and older or minimalist distro is what you're looking for. You can also dumb down the Ubuntu (server?) install, or do a minimal Debian install and build up from there. However, you will probably need at least a PII for that, sans GUI (or a minimal window manager).

A previous poster was right that mainstream distros tend not to have good support for less than a P4.

You can try Vector, ConnochaetOS or antiX, all of them should work on such a machine. At least you should be able to start from the CDs to a point where you are able to get more information about the hardware specs.

The key to enter the BIOS is probably F10. If its not F10, its probably Alt+Ctrl+Esc. It could be Del, F1, F8 as well. I'd try F10 or Alt+Ctrl+Esc before anything else. Just hold down F10 or Alt+Ctrl+Esc while the machine is booting.

The computer would kost likely only have a CD -ROM/CD-RW drive, not a DVD-ROM or DVD-RW drive.

With 60MB and an antique system, I'd honsetly trash it. +1 to snowpine

Besides WinXP being much older, the *buntus arent really made to be 'light'.

No idea on what you dell system even is, if its newer than 2005-2006 then you've got sod-all chance of win9X working with it. Win9X never had driver support for newer systems...

The absolute bottom line for Linux with a GUI off the CD, rather than do-it-yourself, is AntiX. I've had that running the Ted word-processor or the Dillo web-browser in less than 64MB. If AntiX won't run, then it's do-it-yourself with Tiny Core, or a command-line system. You could always get FreeDOS and see how we lived in the early 80s!

Like I said: It's running MINIX. Like I didn't say:FreeDOS is on my other computer.
I know what 80s computers where like.
I just noticed that it posses the inability to boot to Floppy...
The cords where different sizes so I know I didn't hook up the cd drive wrong.
This computer is really startig to scare me...

This Advent game on MINIX is oddly entertaining.
I'll just keep minix thanks for the help.