I have a box to play with, so this begs the grand question...what distro?

bknight1983 · 08-16-2004, 01:48 PM

Hi all,

I have a Dell Optiplex GX1 with a PIII 600 MHz processor with 128 MB of RAM, CD drive, CD-RW drive, and a Linksys WMP11 v4 Wireless PCI card. Any suggestions on what distro to use. If anything, I'd like to be able to use the wireless card.

Thanks for you help, as always,

Bryan

tuxrules · 08-16-2004, 02:12 PM

I would say Slackware (as you wanna play around and eventually learn). I suggest you find out if your wireless pci card is supported, most likely it would be supported but better to check it beforehand.

egag · 08-16-2004, 02:12 PM

well... your PC will not win the Olympics-for-disabled-computers,( notofast ),but what do you want.....
-learn linux ( the not so easy way ) :Slackware (the best)
-easy to start with : Mandrake, RedHat, Fedora.....( there are 3 that i don't know but they get good ref. )

and any linux distro will come with all drivers for anything.

egag

rustee · 08-16-2004, 03:02 PM

Slackware or Gentoo if u want to learn linux

Sadist · 08-16-2004, 03:08 PM

gentoo ?? huh on my cell 1000 with 256 ram base-system and kernel compile ~ 8 hrs so...
i think u need a Debian or Slackware ... as u wish....
i have an old 486sux4 laptop with debian ... all works fine
take a look this:
http://deadman.icf.bofh.ru/shots/lin/shot.jpg
and
http://deadman.icf.bofh.ru/tmp/dmesg.current

bruno buys · 08-16-2004, 06:39 PM

Hmm... 16MB is good...
Do you believe I can install woody on a 8MB 486??? What graph env. can I expect, if any?

2damncommon · 08-16-2004, 08:54 PM

Bump up the RAM and try anything you want or expect some slowness with your 128 MB.
Any major distribution is good for starters if there are not hardware problems that prevent installation.
At 128 things like Slackware and Debian are good choices. Doubled to 256 you can choose what you want more easily.
When you are new it is nice to just do a default install and fool with it.
What distributions are catching your eye and making your head swim?

Sadist · 08-20-2004, 01:48 AM

>Hmm... 16MB is good...
>Do you believe I can install woody on a 8MB 486??? What graph env. can I expect, if any?

why not ? just make swap && swapon first and buy couple botle's of beer :]

take a look this url's

tuxmobil.org
linux-laptop.org

markkreuzz · 08-20-2004, 02:06 AM

Try the gentoo precompiled installation. You can always learn after.

cgtueno · 11-12-2004, 01:01 AM

Hi

I run a lot of different Distos.

Dell Optiplex GX1 PIII 450 Slimline 128M & 256M RAM
RH 8.0, & RH 9.0 work really well.

It has a nice gentle learning curve, and it is an ideal
place to start. I use these distros for the day-to-day
stuff, and configure other boxes with Slackware, etc
for development as required.

Hope that helps

Regards

Chris

linux_terror · 11-12-2004, 03:32 AM

Hi, for what it's worth

Slack = the not so ez but very nice distro(awesome for advanced users)
RedHat 9 = easier, but in 9 you run into the goddamn errno patch all the time trying to compile programs.
Mandrake 10 = the ticket for end users as it is very user friendly and geared moreso than redhat to multimedia.

I would say for a beginner any rpm based distro would be fine but I'd have to go with mandrake.
linux_terror

DAChristen29 · 11-12-2004, 11:42 AM

search feature is a nice thing. it is your friend (this has only been asked approx 1,410,138 times)

i'd say use mepis. definietly try mepis.