del

You can never learn if you don't ask. We all start somewhere, so don't be afraid to ask!

If you are installing knoppix, you can type
knx-hdinstall

If you are not root, you'll probably need to type
sudo knx-hdinstall

That command will start the installation for knoppix which will walk you through partitioning, reformating, etc. If you are not installing knoppix, there are a few steps...
All of this will need to be done with root:

1. First off, you need to partition...I suggest cfdisk for this. Just type cfdisk /dev/hda(or if you need another hard drive /dev/hdb...etc). I suggest a primary and a swap partition until you are more used to linux...later on you can add more partitions. Remember the names of the partitions like "/dev/hda1" "/dev/hda2" etc...
2. Secondly you'll need to decide what type of partition you want. There are many different filesystems in linux, each with their positives and negatives...the most popular seem to be ext3 and reiserfs. These are both journalized file systems (while I hate the comparison, if you are used to Windows it may make sense) that are kinda like NTFS. ext2 is not journalized, so it kinda more like FAT32. My favourite is reiserfs...but it generally makes no difference. Ext3 seems faster with large files and reiserfs with small files but it depends on the system, so they should preform around the same.
3. Now to partition, there are different tools...mke2fs, mkreiserfs, etc...just type mk [TAB] [TAB] to see what types there are. To partition type mkreiserfs /dev/hda(whatever the number is that you saw in cfdisk)...replace mkreiserfs with whatever system you prefer.

All of the above is usually done in a linux installer so you should not have to do it manually if you use any popular distributions...probably the only exceptions to this that I know of are source based distros like Gentoo, Sourcemage, etc. Of course any home built linux like LFS would be in the same boat...

you can use man <commandname> to show its helppage and
type apropos <related> to search the man pages
(man mkfs.ext3 will show you the manpage of the format command for filesystem type ext3,
apropos format will give you a list of manpages with the word "format" in their title. That's a long list, you can scroll using Shift+PageUp/Down)

hth,
Florian

del

My first distro was Slackware...it seemed fitting as a new distro, but not nearly as friendly as the more popular distributions. It depends on what type of experience you want to have...and what type of computer user you are. You will more than likely not like the first distro you try to use...but then again, you may. I will rank the below is order of user friendliness in groups...

Redhat, Mandrake, Suse, etc are all friendly to a new user, but are not the best for a slow machine. These would be the distributions that have everything prepackaged for the whole linux experience...and more than you will ever use. These are in no way cut back for a slow computer, but should install well with almost any hardware.

I kind of put Ubuntu and Yopper in-between the top group and the next group. You get much more an open source feel from these distributions that are not as commercial as the above, but are still user friendly. Both are based off of Debian, and use a great package management system for installing. You may need some configuring here, but it might be the right group if you want to learn...though I would not suggest Yopper for a lower end computer. Ubuntu would be good, but you may need to move away from Gnome to a window manager that requires less resources. Ubuntu would be my main suggestion, and is what I use right now...I moved from source base distributions to Ubuntu...I love the package management, but hate being away from the customization, and can see myself going back to a source based distro on my desktop soon...it seems like I do not learn as much on a day to day basis about Linux using Ubuntu than I did using a source based, but more because it just works than anything.

Below that group are what I call the classic gnu/linux distros. These include Debian and Slackware. Both do not give you comforts such as graphical configuration tools...Debian does have a great package manager, but I have always had a harder time installing it than even the source based distributions. Slackware is pure...there is no fluff, although there are plenty of utilities, and no package management. It was my first distribution and a great one to learn on, but not a great one to try to update on a day to day basis...it is a "get it working, and don't touch it again" type of distribution to me. However, it is great for slow computers and servers. There are now package managers for slackware, but I haven't tried it since I made the initial move to gentoo.

Finally, the source based distros...these are not entirely friendly to new users, but you will learn more than you ever care to know about Linux from them. These include Gentoo, Sourcemage, and for an extreme, Linux from Scratch. They also do not work entirely well on slow computers...kind of. The problem is that you have to compile every program you run...everything runs faster if you do things right, and you can decide how much "fluff" you want, but it will always take you much longer to get a running system than a prebuilt distro, and will take you longer to get a new package than almost any other means. You will run into problems eventually...but hopefully you will learn to recover from them by research. After you run a source based distribution for a few years with the number of problems that I had, you will probably be ready for Linux + certification if you can retain everything you had to do to fix the problems.

My suggestion to any Linux newb that wants to learn Linux is always Ubuntu...it seems like a middle of the road distribution that is on the cutting edge and friendly, but still requires some config file editing every once in a while...although it is rare. For Business users that have no desire to learn or grow with Linux, I suggest the popular more commercial distributions like Redhat, Suse, etc...and the reason that I call them commercial is that that is who they seem to cater to, businesses...not that they are any less free than other distributions (except for Enterprise editions/etc.)

There is a section on the linuxquestions wiki for choosing a distro, as well as a forum for distro reviews. You might also check distrowatch that is a great listing of distributions...(check google for the address, I cannot post links.)

It can be overwhelming...my advice is to just pick one and stay in some linux...I had to stay in it for two months without ever going back to Windows to start to understand it, and honestly it was Gentoo that drew my attention. AFter that I started to love it SO much more, I started to enjoy computing again. Good luck choosing!

That's a seriously old computer! But never mind, many linux users have a kind of reverse snobbery, and like to boast about how well linux runs on slow and pathetic hardware.

Here is a recent and fairly comprehensive review of linux distros for old hardware:

http://www.linux.com/print.pl?sid=06/02/13/1854251

I would not even consider KDE/Gnome. In fact I wouldn't even bother upgrading your hardware. Unless you replace the whole thing there will always be a bottleneck somewhere. It should work fine for many basic tasks just as it is with a modern lightweight distro.

del

The only problem with Ubuntu on a computer with no network or internet is that Ubuntu does not come prepackaged with everything that a lot of distributions come prepackaged with...if you don't have access to a network I might suggest something else like slackware, becuase Gnome will crawl...you will at least need another window manager unless you plan on using console, in which case you'd still need a network to install things over.

And yes, it is possible but it is something I have done before...you might look up "beowolf clusters" on google...there are other forms of clusters now, but I am not very familiar with it. All you should need is a router and cables for all three computers. There was a form of cluster that just allowed a single process with forks to talk to each other...not sure of the name though.