Slax does allow installation to the hard drive, but you have to use the command line installer. As far as slackware for newbies, I started with slackware and love it but i do admit you have to want to learn to use linux to use it fully but it installed completely functional.

As far as the best choice I will always recommend trying different versions of linux and not just one version before deciding. There are many choices and options available to the point where the individual has the choice of getting exactly what they want. As far as a package manager, for users who only check email, surf the web and listen to mp3's and such then a package manager is not really even needed and the more difficult varieties of linux are usually faster (will find exceptions). But for those that don't want to deal with manually updating their systems, there are many distro's with package managers available.

In the end, make a list of features that are important to you and try at least a few different versions of linux with those available options and decide on one closest to what you want. This will save you time in the end requiring less work to get it configured EXACTLY the way you want it and make your linux experience as enjoyable as possible. It will also let you see features not installed by default that you can install and enhance your final linux os system. It will also allow you to see what versions best work with your system although you might have to trim them down a bit.

Best wishes and welcome to linux. No matter what you choose remember only that you are the only on that has to be happy with it .

A small note (about the topic of this thread). First, Linux doesn't work with everything; if you try to run it on an apple (no, not Apple, but an apple that you'll find from an apple tree), it won't probably do a thing (because apples aren't computers). Second, Linux is the kernel, not the whole operating system (such as Ubuntu, Slackware, ...) So Linux itself doesn't do much unless there's something more around it..

Then into the business. I'm fairly sure some Linux based operating systems run on your machine without too much configuration, and most of them with some tweaking. If the first four DVD distribution you try doesn't work out of the box - neither will Windows Vista, so don't be surprised (they don't sell Windows operating systems with machines that it doesn't work with; it is possible, though, to buy a machine it doesn't work with, and later a copy of Windows, and not get them work together).

So..it's time to start searching for a distribution that does work. Slackware is known to work on older/low-end hardware too, whereas many "modern" Linux based operating systems might be slow at least. Slackware offers KDE desktop, but it'll be slow if the machine isn't too new..well, no worries, there are other desktops. WindowMaker is great and runs fast. Slackware site has some notes on how you can get it installed on old hardware if it doesn't seem to work all right..and most distributions' websites have a section (maybe a wiki) that answers the questions about install problems. IRC channels have even more information available, since there are real people there that can answer real-time questions (if you ask nicely; on Freenode you're not supposed to be anything else but nice little newbie if you want proper answers).

I've been running a very stripped-down Linux-based operating system on a very old, odd/not-so-general hardware that the oldest Windows operating systems refused to work on. So I take it that your situation isn't completely impossible to live in..

Besides, if you just want Linux operating system to run on a machine, you can always buy a new pc from the store. If you'd be ok running the OS on an old machine, you're probably OK buying a "low-end" machine (funny, I don't think nowadays machines can be low-end anymore, but people still call them such) and those don't really cost much anymore. You'll easily pay more for a portable music player than for a pc nowadays.. Instead, if you specifically want to run a Linux operating system on an old hardware, you just have to accept that you'll need to study things a bit first - at least find a suitable OS before trying to install any.

Robust is an odd choice of word here.
Until the point is made that Linux is just a catch up OS.

I currently have Smoothwall 2.0 running on a Pentium 100, 32MB RAM, 2GB hard disk. It has been running for a couple years. Which version of Windows am I "working around" to be able to do this?

I ran a web server for about a year on a pentium 100 with 64MB RAM using Debian Woody.

I had both Debian Woody and Suse 9.x on my HP with a 500MhZ Celeron and 256MB RAM. I knew I had to consider some changes when Debian ran good but Suse was slow. Debian would play videos in Mplayer while in KDE but I could only play videos in Suse if I started in Blackbox instead of KDE. My obvious choice was to make software choices based on performance or upgrade to better hardware.

As a further example that webserver happily running Debian choked to even attempt to install Suse in text mode.

The fact is that there do exist software choices that can make old hardware useful with current programs.

What I don't understand is why your failure to make a good software choice for your hardware needs to praise Windows at the expense of Linux. It would seem it is more important to include that in your post than to spend time choosing the correct software.

There is a beautiful, KDE and Gnome compatible, GUI that runs on a Pentium 100mhz with 64MB RAM which is faster than Fluxbox and is called Enlightenment 17. There is a Ubuntu version packed with Enlightenment 17 and is called Elbuntu, so you'll have a good laptop compatible system

Oops!: Elbuntu isn't finished yet so you'll have to wait a while Sorry...

I've played around with E17 and in no way is it "faster than Fluxbox". It's pretty, it's fun, and it's faster than GNOME or KDE because those are DEs and E17 is just a WM. I liked the old Enlightenment WM, and it was almost a DE, but they've long since abandoned any real development on that. I know this isn't going to be popular opinion, but if you use Ubuntu you're much better off with the default GNOME desktop. As soon as you start to use anything else, the limitations of Ubuntu become all too apparent. I'm not flaming Ubuntu, but the stock desktop really is better on that platform. Also, because of the automated nature of Ubuntu, it's never going to be really fast. What it is, is convenient, and that's a good thing.

Rasterman (creator of E) did memmory benchmarks on E17 and it was faster. I gues E17 got heavier because they tested it on a 486 for performance but now it requires a 100mHz pentium.

It's not a WM anymore. They aim to make E17 a DE now.

I don't know how E16 could ever be considered a DE :S

Well in the nature of Ubuntu as a distro you are right, but the base system is still:
-compatible with debian (I installed a few debian packages so no it's _not borken_) and Ubuntu packages. There is a lot of support and usage around Ubuntu so it probably still is smart to considder Elbuntu.

I'm surprised noone's mentioned Wolvix. http://wolvix.org/

It's kinda like the best of both Slackware and Ubuntu. The hardware requirements are in the FAQ section. XFCE is the default desktop with Fluxbox selectable from the login screen.

Faster is relative. I'm not saying that under some condition or another you couldn't get a better benchmark. I'm not even saying his benchmarks aren't fair. What I'm saying is that I've used both WMs and Fluxbox is faster for me. I remember when Apple was trying, with benchmarks, to prove that their 200 Mhz processor was faster than Intel's 300 Mhz processor. In some cases, it might have been. In some cases, a Zilog Z80 is faster than today's P4. It's true. Only in one case, but true.

Cool! I'll have to have another look at it. I'm not against anything here, and I definitely would like a fast DE.

Believe it or not, I'm not talking about E16, I'm talking about when E used to be the default WM for GNOME. GNOME still owes a lot to those days, it's just that you really have to look "under the hood" to see it.

Hey, I think there's always room for more in the old arsenal. I'll probably give it a look.

For an older machine like what you have, I suggest you use xubuntu. ITs lighter and runs better on machines that have some mileage on them.


Also I've got news for you, that Windows XP is going to freeze up on that old machine of yours pretty soon, enjoy it while you can

Just FYI: I have a 5000 series Compaq Presario and I've run Ubuntu, PCLOS, Debian Etch and Mint at various times in the past few months. I have 1GB memory which I added prior to trying any Linux distro. I have had no problems whatsoever. I just swapped my hard drive from 40 Gb to 160 Gb and I'm dual booting PCLOS and Mint with no problems. It definitely can by done!

He benchmarked with responce time in ms (miliseconds) and the E WM was way faster. The conditions of a comparing CPU's is indeed dependant on circumstances but the circumstance of a WM limits to how fast it responds to things like making/loosing focus and opening up empty windows. I gues it is pretty acurate to say that the E WM is the fastest of all.

Ah ok.

If you were wondering; I installed a old debian package of Quake2 on the upcomming Ubuntu Gutsy and it worked Never really expected that to work but ok

My Compaq desktop pro has a PIII (coppermine) chip with 249mbs of RAM (I think it's supposed to be 256not sure what happened to the other seven) and a speed of 864 GHz. I tried the two main *Buntus before I finally decided to give Xubuntu a go. I must say the difference in performance is quite noticeable.

Now.. if only the panels would come in some colour other than grey... :lol:

In summation, the OP gives up easily without actually solving the problem, there are some hilarious comments regarding Slackware (ohmygod!), and some folks really like E17.

This is how you make Linux run on a 386:

1) Get on a new computer with a copy of Linux 2.4 or earlier kernel source
2) open a terminal and cd into the dir where the kernel source is
3) tar -xf linux-<version>
3) cd linux-<version>
4) use make menuconig to remove as many things as possible and set it to 386 machine code
5) make all

stick it onto a floppy with grub and tcsh and boot off of that.

I don't think a kernel, grub and tcsh can fit on one floppy disk