i would like to put linux on s low-end machine. i would like it to do only few things:
- make it relativly simple to install it (i do realize that it will take a lot of work to put a 2k4-2k5 os on such an old machine)
- make it easy to connect to internet with dial-up (aka i would like that setting up a dial up connection is easy)
- be able to get open office

the specs of the computer are 266mhz cpu and 32mb ram.

any help appriciated

Nah, it's not possible. Not to run Open Office anyway. If you are up to something more light as Abiword (word processor) or gnumeric (spreedsheet) then it could be possible. Open Office crawls in my 2.0 GHZ PIV with 512 RAM. The newer versions seems to start up a bit faster, but still...

Your processor is quite alright, problem is your ram memory. But if you are going to use Abiword and Gnumeric, then I would recommend you Slackare or Debian with a light weight Window Manager as IceWM, WMaker or Flux/Open/Blackbox.

Since you are low in RAM, you will need to use command line applications as often as you can, so no fancy gui's for you to configure your machine. To sum up, your options are:

1 - Use Win98 with MS Office in that machine. You'd get a great performance with usual MS-crashes

2 - Use something light weight and learn Linux for real instead counting with fancy gui's.

Side note: When you say dial up, I hope you have a real modem, not a win-modem

266 isnt that bad!
but 32MB is ...

the machine itself would be great as a firewall running ipcop (see ipcop.org) ... but an extra 16MB might help a bit.

getting openoffice to run on it might be pushing it a bit

try debian out ... you can make things pretty tight with debian..


to test it out, if you have a cdrom, you could try booting knoppix to see how it performs

If you can find some more ram (and it's not too hard for old machines) and get it up to 64meg you can run a fairly useable system for net use, but OOo is going to be a problem... I haven't even tried to run it on the P166 I have here with 64meg, but I don't think it would run well...

when i said i want it to run openoffice i meant something that can open .doc files. according to thire site abiword can open .doc files, am i right?

knoppix won't run on that machine at least not with kde 3.x that afaik requires 512 ram. i do know that i'll have to run on that machine less intensive window manager.

according to quick google OOo is open office, right?

is there any particualr guide/howto/tutoial/wiki/whatever about putting linux on a machines like that or i just need to take care of software choices?


thanks for the replyes

If that machine boots from the CD-Rom (and most likely, it does) so the process to install it is pretty much as any other distribution. Just make sure to get something light as Slackware or Debian. Their installers are command line based, but it's no rocket science, really. It's just not fancy

I have been running Slackware 8.1 on my Old Dell Latitude XPI for some time now. It's only a 166MMX 48meg ram 4gig HD.

It runs KDE 3.0 just fine, although not the fasted machine, it does everything I need it to do...

I even got it to run Knoppix 3.7 but very slow. not worth it. but the slackware HD install is perfect.

I would say make at least a 128meg swap part D/L Slackware 8.1 and try it.
http://www.linuxiso.org/distro.php?distro=17

Good Luck
KC