Good day, Linux gurus!

I have an old laptop Compaq Armada (Processor 166 MHz, 147 MB RAM, 3.1 GB HDD) and was collecting dust in one of my drawers. At first I wanted to get rid of it, but my daughter wanted "a real computer", not just a barbie laptop. So I decided to prepare for her to play with. I wanted to load windows 95 or 98 on it, but I think a Linux is a better choice. She only needs to play a couple of games and maybe to connect to the internet.
Does anyone know a "light" distribution that comes with GUI interface and works fine on such an old machine?
Thank you!

I'd recommend using PuppyLinux.
By far it's among the better Operating Systems for old hardware.

======================
Thank you osdeals!

I'll give it a try.

Well.... I'm not sure if there is a problem with the laptop or I'm doing something wrong...
I tried Puppy Linux and it fails installing when checking for the IDE
the error is as follows:
Any ideea what is that mean?
My installation of SuSE failed as well, with something simillar.
Strangest thing is... I can install Windows 95/98 with no problems.
I don't like to conclude the Windows is more clement with the hardware, than Linux is.

Please help.

Thank you!
<i>dantux</i>

Here are some other distros to try:

Distros for older Hardware:

Vector Linux 4.3
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

SLAX Live CD
http://www.slax.org/

BeaFanatIX
http://bea.cabarel.com/

Elive:
http://www.elivecd.org/

Deli
http://delili.lens.hl-users.com/

you might also want to check out:

http://www.linux-laptop.net/
http://www.tuxmobil.org/

to see what other users have done with your model of laptop

Jake

Hi Jake!

Thank you so much for your reply!
I managed to get puppy linux installed by giving "ide=nodma" option to the boot. But I'm inclined to try something else. I know I can install the Live CD to the hard drive, but I would like something to be installed and designed for normal Hard Drive run.
Thank you so much guys for trying to help out. Really appreciate it.

dantux

I have installed Puppy on an old Dell Latitude laptop, and the install option went just fine. It's not designed with that in mind, but it's one of the easier ways to get a fairly complete system up and running on old hardware. I ditched it because I like Debian style package management, and decided to install ubuntu server (CLI system) then manually install xorg, fluxbox, and all of the apps.

I managed in the end to get everything working (installed puppy on the hard drive).... except two little things:

• I ran the ALSA sound wizard and I (think) configured my sound card. If I use "cdplay" command line, I can play an audio CD and the sound is great. I also have sound when playing the CD with XFree CD Player (something like that). But all the other applications... are mute. Even games. Xine player... makes a bunch of little noise and that's it. I have no ideea what's going on.
• The other issue, is... the user. I don't want my daughter to run Linux as "root". I tried to add a user and I succeded. But the user created like that... only has acces to the system without GUI. And most of the programs don't work due to file permissions.
  Is there any way to create a regular user on Puppy Linux? The distro looks exactly what I am looking for and it's a pitty I can't do it because of a couple little things.

Thank you guys for your replies.

dantux

I've been trying to find a distro to run on this thing for years and STILL with little success! I'm no longer a complete newbie to linux & STILL CAN'T get anything to work stable on this PC!I spent ALL LAST NIGHT trying to get Puppy to install [the latest version to date which is April 2014] but even that failed! The system actually runs great but I cannot get the PC to install it correctly! It can't find the system even when i did install it! [3xs btw before giving up] CD wise the system runs fine but I'm wanting to install it as its core running system as i've ditched the outdated windows completely! At post time I've downloaded the latest Lubuntu for it & hope to have sussess! I'm running it right now on CD but its from a laptop with a higher processor so I won't know till I get it back out & start tinkering again!

lastly: I first started trying to install linux on this thing back when its running windows was expiring whch was back with Windows Me! Shockingly I haven't gaven up on it & tried various different linuxs some worked others totally would not load! all current Ubuntus run to slow so Im hoping thats not the case with the Lubuntu? DSL & Puppy run the best DSL better than Puppy but puppy I can get my wifi adapter to work while DSL no internet at all! Hope this post helps others? Its tasky trying to get linux on this so I'd suggest a whole lot of patience! for a couple of years I gave up & got a WinXP pro for it but now thats going the way of the dinosuar! Later

Forget about that.

Back before I sold mine

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/09/...indows-95.html

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2008/10/...on-compaq.html

If had another one.

I'd go with
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycorelinux/
http://distro.ibiblio.org/tinycoreli...reenshots.html

Which was not available when I owned mine.

For Puppy

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/Barebones

Finally got puppy 5.7 running! It was the grub!i hate those things though ive got linux somewhat figured out i still have issues running grub!