Hallo, well i recently revived an old laptop, just need to fix the power supply. And ive decided to install linux on it. Well to my surprise there is no linux u can just download and run.

So i look around and found out that Slackware and SuSe were pretty nice linux distro's for linux naabs. Well am i right? or should i get a difrent one?

The main point is to have the laptop online so i can IM and i would love a nice text-prgm with it (like word) Thats about it. It cant really handle games so :P

anyway the laptop specs:
Dell Latitude XPI
155MHz
16mb Ram
1.33GB HD (i want 100mb for text files)
Currently has win95 but i h8 that.
support.ap.dell.com/docs/systems/ptcd/Specs.htm (has detail spec.)

Well i really would want some answers
my msn: phoenix81000@hotmail.com <-- please add me if u can help



P.S. this is my first encounter with linux, never seen it or nothing!

Hi and welcome to LQ. Slackware/Damn Small Linux/Puppy Linux and the other lighter-weight distros would go very well on that laptop. You could also check www.distrowatch.com for other distro listings. I'd also suggest www.linux-laptop.net for help with configuring.

And please use more descriptive titles in future, your topic tells us nothing about the problem.

iam sorry lemme edit that

ok i was just reading about DSL look sweet iam going to check out the other ones, but iam rather scared of the howtoinstall guides. well iam going to read about the other ones :| thx for the quick response.

one lil thing, which of the above listed distro's is most userfriendly?

I believe DSL (Damn Small Linux) is very user-friendly.

Puppy-Linux looks very cool! Most of the install tutorials are talking about partitions. Cant i just format the HD when i boot with the puppy-cd or whatever?

Iam actually really positive about the possibilites! and puppy-linux looks just like
what i want

... i think i found the linux spirit thing

With Linux, you need one whole partition to install to (either the entire hard disk or a part of the hard disk), you then need at least 2 partitions in that partition - / (root) and /swap, 1 have 3 - /boot, /swap and /

You then intall the distro to the partition(s).

iam talking on mIRC with some guy and i dont think i have enought RAM for Puppy

16mb is very low, you'd be unlikely to get X running on it, at least not very well. Try www.crucial.com to see if you can get more memory.

Ok iam going to go for DSL then =]

is that a nice complete package? Well iam really worried about the hardware dedection? or is this something i shouldnt worry about?

DSL is a live cd which you can then install to the hard drive, hardware detection is pretty good.