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I have just started using working on learning Linux again after a long hiatus. I have been playing with Knoppix, however, I have an older laptop it has a P3, 750 Mhz, with 256 RAM. I would like to put this on a network with my Windows system and perhaps run SAMBA. I am mostly interested in learning about network security and using the Knoppix-STD tools on my home network. I was looking at Slackware but I could not find the information on hardware requirements. I have not decided that it must be Slackware if theree is a better Distro for my purposes.
My concerns are:
what does my hardware limit me too?
What does the laptop limit me too (its a Dell)?
I want a good base to learn from, in other words, I want standard features and networking capabilities but not too much else to start?
What distro do you think will work best for my needs?
hi,
i've pIII 600 MHz processor with 256 Mb of RAM and running Slackware smoothly.
And i know i can run most of the distros on my machine except the ones which asks too much of memory like Fedora 3 onwards.
No problem with your hardware.....but if you like..you can increase the memory.
<what does my hardware limit me too?>
Any distro you like, but to speed things up a bit don't use KDE or Gnome, use a lightweight window manager (fluxbox, icewm).
<What does the laptop limit me too (its a Dell)?>
Any distro will run, there might be a few bits of hardware that you might have to tinker with the configs to get them to work (modem, soundcard)
<I want a good base to learn from, in other words, I want standard features and networking capabilities but not too much else to start?>
Go for Debian, good standard features, good networking (exactly the same as all distro to be honest) and a breeze to install apps.
Thanks, I appreciate the info. Is there any limit to which version of the kernal I should run?
Can run 2.6.x smoothly ( Its the current )
And your systems memory is not that poor that you can't use KDE or GNOME. I'm running KDE for more than a year with 256 Mb of RAM.
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