I would consider three things at first that rule out a whole bunch of distros:
- The K6-II processor is not an i686 CPU, it lacks the CMOV instruction, so anything optimized for i686, like Arch for example, will not work.
- With only 192MB of RAM it does not make sense to reduce RAM available to system and applications any further, so I would rule out any distro that loads the system into RAM, like Tinycore, Slitaz or Puppy.
- The general specs of that machine are indeed (in computer terms) ancient and very slow. Compiling software on it will take forever, which rules out source based distros (Gentoo, LFS, CRUX, ...). Depending on which software you want to install it also may rule out distros like Slackware, which sometimes require compiling, but nowadays, with the availability of repositories from AlienBob, Microlinux and Salix this may not be really relevant.

Considering this, I would go for antiX (based on Debian, huge repo with good availability of low resource software, no compiling needed, aimed at old computers) or one of the General purpose distributions tweaked manually, like Debian (same things apply as for antiX) or Slackware (only if you don't need to compile extra software, very lightweight when used with Blackbox, Fluxbox, FVWM, ...).

There are three different options that I want to mention, in case it does no have to be a Linux OS:
- One of the more lightweight BSDs, like NetBSD
- One of the tiny OSes written in Assembly, like KolibriOS
. FreeDOS

2 members found this post helpful.

CrunchBang is cool too.

Here are some fun project ideas for junk computers: https://kmandla.wordpress.com/2007/0...-old-computer/

Personally I would recycle such an old computer, but perhaps you can come up with a fun idea for it, like a jukebox, DOS-game emulator, or torrent slave.

2 members found this post helpful.

The main issue I see is that:

30MB to run the kernel + base system
20MB to run an X environment + minimalist wm
150MB to launch a modern web browser (with a blank start page).

Which puts you over your available RAM. Gross approximations, but in the ball park. We've come a long way since the kernel and OS could fit on a 1.44MB floppy. Which unfortunately leaves a lot of older machines out in the cold.

I recently upgraded my RAM from 1GB to 2GB and that fixes a few xruns in jackd with pulseaudio over it. There's only one application / game that I run that hogs that much RAM, but when it does, with < 1GB of ram, things start to fail.

Not to say that you can't run linux on that box. But if you're hoping to do a pluthera of gui stuff, prepare for disapointment. You can still use it as a file server, router, or other things. But why would you want to when a < $40 arm device more than doubles the computational capabilities of that device.

That being said, I was using a 386 as a dumb terminal for mainframe Y2K work in 1999. Not that I wanted to. But it happened, and was for all intents functional. Even though I wasn't allowed to bill the twenty minute boot time, or bill the twenty minute walk from a satelite parking lot, each way.

RAM is cheep if upgradeable but there is swap and waiting on the machine...... I like CLI for my oldest http://www.compmiscellanea.com/en/te...-for-linux.htm are good browsers too.

1 members found this post helpful.

Oh this is very encouraging, not, and also false. See for yourself:
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...4&d=1389626363

Those still too heavy for that machine the video will go up to 8Mb only, here the specs of his machine.

@ironmanzelda15 So the best would go with smaller lighter WMs, for the the smallest in memory footprint terms you can get is tinywm, not as light but still very light ones are evilwm and flwm. Here you can have a good idea about it.

This web site is a very good place to find good ideas how to set up a old computer.

@ironmanzelda15 , best thing for your computer in the first place is not to install any system through the default way, it will be bloated, period.

You'll have to do a custom install with only the minimal necessary, and only with the things the machine can run, it isn't what you want, but what the machine can do. You have to think in terms of very light weight software. You have mentioned you want a browser, for that the best is Dillo, it is super light weight and graphical, but limited.

Debian is a good distro to achieve that, you can built it only with the things that will fit in your system, starting with a minimal bare system, and then adding other things on top, very modular.

Another thing you will probably want to do is to recompile the kernel, stock kernels are very generic and have a lot fat, so recompiling it you can dry it out leaving only the necessary, gaining much in space, memory and processor usage, boot time, performance, just to mention some.

The most challenge you have there is the video limitations, for that, if you are up to the task, then to compile yourself X is another thing to do as well.

That been said now you do have a good start point and things to think about before doing anything. If you dig enough, you will be surprised how much is possible to do with those old relics.

Regards

2 members found this post helpful.

So which impact do you think has the amount of video memory on a non-compositing WM that Fluxbox or Blackbox would be too heavy?

@tobi, yes, enough to bring performance down, i have tried DWM on a machine with very similar specs 200ish RAM, 8Mb video K5 or K6 450Mhz, and wasn't pleasant. So better go smaller since he want to have also a browser, lighter the better.
DWM have little over 2100 lines of code, that was too much in my tests.

@ironmanzelda15
This may be helpful as well:
Also i forgot to mention if you want a login manager grab the very light ones, XDM(preferably) or Slim.

Regards

1 members found this post helpful.

Which part? I see a gui, but all it has open is a bunch of xterms. Hardly what the average joe would use a computer for, even an old one. Especially one asking for a distro recommendation. 192GB of RAM to watch an HD video? Enable flash and java and check your yahoo mail in firefox? I doubt it. It's plenty of kit to run linux, but for what usage? A slide show screensaver of your family pics? Streaming audio might push the capabilities of that box with browser based players like iHeartRadio. The number of CLI based stations you can play with mplayer isn't what it used to be. But they still exist, if only at the universities. I still vote debian, but not a noob distro by any measure.

I've got a 900mhz AMD duron laptop with 8mb of video memory. It runs icewm and fluxbox just fine, but I find jwm to be more responsive on that machine.

Wonder if MenuetOS would run on this old system?

1 members found this post helpful.

That didn't answer the question. The code for a WM is not stored in video RAM, so my question remains, on a non-compositing WM, how does the amount of video memory affects performance, so that Fluxbox or Blackbox are to heavy for a machine with 8MB of video RAM?

your free to use an older version of slack like slackware 9 would work just fine on an older sustem like your's
even with KDE

I tended to use IceWM because it's fairly light weight and responsive. I recently switched to cwm which is about as light as it gets, RAM wise it's only 20MB smaller than IceWM. JWM lands in the middle between IceWM and cwm for ram usage. Under cwm, things are even more responsive than IceWM. I get better fps on a game, fewer xruns in jackd, and other perks. 20MB might not sound like much, but if you have only 200MB of ram, that's 10% more. DWM looks to be smaller still as the wc -l count for cwm is about 6200 lines of code for the .c and .h files.

You can run Firefox, with Flash, in 128MB using Antix — at least you could in version 12. You may doubt it, but I've done it. If 13 or Firefox has grown larger, there's always Midori.