Linux equivalent to Win98
 

I am trying to convince my boss that the 3 Win98 boxes at work should be coverted to Linux. They are used mostly for web-browsing, text-editing and listening to music.

Box 1: AMD K6 400Mhz proc. | 256MB RAM | 28GB HDD.

Box 2: Intel PII 333Mhz proc. | 256MB RAM | 10GB HDD.

Box 3: Intel PII 233Mhz proc. | 64MB RAM | 10GB HDD.

What I whant is a distro that imitate win98 as much as possible and the same distro for all 3, because of compatibility isues.
Also, should I use KDE? or....?

this is not relevant to a certain distro, just what you run on it. pick ANY modern distro, and just don't run anything too fancy on it, like KDE or Gnome. Many "User-Orientated" (read "Bloated" ;)) distros will also run a fair few background services like windows, which you would also want to stop if you don't need them.

Yeah, I know pretty much anything will run, BUT will it run fast... THATS the question. Nothing like SUSE, MANDRIVA, FC, or anything else bloated. Thats NOT what I want, just something simple and easy to use for the staff (who, BTW, don't even know Linux exists).
So XandrOS would be a good candidate? or Ubuntu? will they perform well on all 3 machines?

Any distro will do, just disable servics that you don't need.

Didn't what i already said explain why it's NOT distro specific?

Sorry, didn't mean to upset you:eek: .

that's not what i meant at all, just that that's the point.. is doesn't matter which distro you pick, it's how you use it.

It's not the size that counts, it's how you use it! :p

As has been said, any distro will do you but in the way of looking like Windows 98, There are a few window manager that can handle this for you. xpde - WinXP clone. Fvwm95 - Windows 95 clone. IceWM+theme - can look a lot like Win. Install Beep Media Player and the Winamp users won't know the difference if you use a Windows-clone Gtk theme and install Firefox and Thunderbird and ta-da! Pretty easy.

try dual booting one box- get it working, put on an XP theme and show it to your boss. He might think you are a genius. :)

good luck!

titanium_geek

I agree this is not distro specific. It has already being said, but I will repeat this:

- The key is not using KDE or GNOME. Use a lighter desktop environment.

Something not said:

- You can improve your boot time dramaticaly if you recompile your kernel (carefull doing that! It works if you follow all the instructions precisely)

Hello!

I have Slackware installed on a PII and I actually do use KDE. Slackware is probably the simplest distro available - that means it is very stable and you can more easily customize it for your needs, but really any distro is fine.

Although KDE is a bit slower than I would want it to be, Win98 performance on the PII is not that great (aside from the fact that it is Win98) either.

I am just wondering why you want to switch over to linux?

Re: Linux equivalent to Win98
 

I hadn't noticed the RAM, sorry. You have a lot of RAM for those speeds, and that should make things easier. KDE and Gnome will run on Box1 and 2. Slow, but will run no problems. Box 3 would be better of with Fluxbox.

Well, the Boxes are on the Internet a lot, and they get used by a lot of different people. I have to scan for viruses, spyware, etc., a lot and I would like something more secure and without the normal "windows" problems.

If they have CD drives Damn Small Linux.
It can be run from CD, loaded into RAM, hard drive install and more.
Try it out before diving in.

I know it well. Somebody suggested I put a different PC in the Office first with Linux on it, so people can get used to it first, then move on to convert the other PC's to LINUX. I think I'll do something like that.
Thanks for all.