You know, Dralnu you got me thinking. If this old computer will run it (unknown), a live CD like SimplyMEPIS would be a reasonable solution. If it runs OK off of the CD, it should run OK when installed.

Although it is not a fair comparison, I run SimplyMEPIS (3.4-3) off of the CD on a new laptop (less than a year old) when I want to use Linux on it. (I cannot install Linux on this one--it has to remain Windows only.) It runs fine--essentially like a hard install. The only problem is that it does not store system settings.

I would also suggest using PCLinuxOS. 256 MB RAM is plenty enough (that's what I'm using with it on my laptop, along with a Pentium III 1 GHz processor). I have read reports that it runs just fine on a 128 MB, PII 350 MHz system, even though this is below the stated system requirements. It is even more out-of-the-box ready than SimplyMepis. As also stated, OpenOffice is easily installed using synaptic (no need to configure repository lists, the PCLinuxOS default repository is enable by default).

PCLinuxOS is the easiest distro I have yet encountered. I have previously installed/used RH, Mandrake, Fedora, and knoppix.

Can you provide any specific Live CD recommendations. In my case Open Office is not a necessity - something less powerful would work if there is such a thing. (an office suite type program with spreadsheet, fax, scanner capabilities etc. would be nice).

I have an older computer (Pentium I maxxed out CPU & RAM, Gigabyte motherboard) I would like to loan/donate to a person totally unfamiliar with any computer at all because they've never had access before. I would like to send along some LIVE CDs with a small blank hard drive. I need a distribution that can work with 128 megs RAM and 233 Mhz CPU with the ability to be totally transferred to a USB microdrive in future once the recipient becomes proficient and able to take the complete system to any other computer which will boot from USB and thereby remain in familiar territory.
Also, once the computer changes hands I won't be close for helping. Do any of the distros offer telephone support for a reasonable price ?

Is there a chart somewhere showing all distros with minuimum hardware requirements ?
I once installed Slackware on a black and white laptop with 4 megs RAM and have a subscription to Linspire bought when it first came out under the name Lindows, but its hardware requirements left me behind so it has been a long time since I've used any Linux at all. I was never able to learn how to install new programs, nor compile a custom kernel.

Since Bill Gates' announcement of his upcoming retirement and W98SE patches being stopped 11th July 2006 I may also be looking to switch my own personal computer sooner rather than later. For me, SPEED is the ultimate deciding factor. Does that mean nothing else but Linux from Scratch ??
No megabucks for new equipment til 64 bit processors are the norm and less pricey on laptops. The distro I choose at this point would need to be transportable to the new laptop when it comes (well at least the knowledge).

Thanks for all comments.
Please excuse any breach of etiquette.
This is my first post I'm being told.
Lorraine

Well, if you have future plans of a big(ger) box, then I'd go Gentoo or LFS. Gentoo is fairly close to a LFS as you can get, without the extra crap to deal with. KDE has seperate packages (split ebuilds, in Gentoo terms), as does Gnome I believe. I've used it some, and besides some problems, it has worked like a DREAM. Its quick, real quick (you can set your own compile options for the system), but upgrades and installs are slow, but to me, I have emerge under sudo, and just sudo updates, and leave it compling while I sleep.

Debian and Slackware are both good, but I don't know much about their speed, since I havn't use them, and from my knowledge, the 3 main distros are Debian, Slackware, and Gentoo, and everything else seems like a version of them.

Welcome to LQ Lorraine,
First, your questions are good ones, but you would get better exposure starting a new thread instead of hijacking this one. Starting a new thread at this point might be considered spamming the board though, so check the rules before you do so. I'll just answer you here and you can call it a learning experience.

A P233/128MB will run just about any distro, just not especially fast. Hardware spec's are laregely (but not completely) irrelevant when using a live CD because everything has to be loaded from the CD on demand, so even a 3GHz 64-bit CPU and 4 GB of RAM would drag its butt a lot of the time with a live CD. The most popular and (debatably) best live CD's are Knoppix and Mepis. I get along well enough with both for the occasional data recovery or administrative tasks I use them for. Trying to perform file maintenance/movement/etc. with konqueror as root in Knoppix is often buggy and you will be somewhat blind, but it works. Stick with the shell for best performance on tasks like that.

Your requirements for an office suite really are best filled by openoffice, but Koffice will probably do the job, too.

Handing the computer over to someone with no prior computer experience is a good thing. They won't have win/ms conventions confusing them while they learn their way around linux.

Just about any distro can be set up on a USB drive. It just takes a little tinkering, some googling, and maybe a helping hand from LQ.

Support can be bought for almost any distro from third party support companies. If you want a live cd that will be supported by the company that makes it, the only one I know of is a Suse live CD that you might be able to buy support from Novell on.

Bill Gates is a businessman. He hasn't had any significant exposure to the actual programming end of his business in a long time. Support for Win98 should have been dropped a long time ago. The 9x kernel is so inferior to the NT kernel in just about every way; XP is more flexible about hardware than people give it credit for, an upgrade is nearly always worthwhile.

viel gluck,

J