Installing Linux on an old PC
 

Hi,

I've been given an old PC which I want to use as a web developement server on my home network.

I tried to install the latest Ubuntu, but after (what seems) a successful install, the computer will not boot up. It used to run Windows ME, so I thought that Linux would be no problem.

Does it sound like a hardware problem - or could I be doing something wrong during the installation? I tried it twice but with no success.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Mei

What happens when you turn on the computer? Tell us the error message as exactly as you can.

Ubuntu is a recent concept to me... I've only heard of it when vmware came out with their free player and ubuntu as the browser appliance! (so I've never actually installed it)

But what will run and not run...

Bassically if it said i386, yep, you can boot that on a 386 computer... If it ever runs Gnome or KDE, that is an entirely different story! Post the specs and people who use the different distros's will tell you if it might work or not!

For now, I recommend getting a small live cd just to see that the computer will function correctly and if it does, then go for a huge dvd install... Slax or DSL are both good small live cd's

http://www.slax.org/
I have the KillBill Edition

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/
there are multiple version of this, including a live cd version!

It's a Pentium II, 256MHz, 64MB of RAM. Should this be enough?

When it boots up, I get the mesage decompressing Linux, starrting Ubuntu etc, and then it lists all the modules (?) etc that it's starting. Everything gives a short [ok] message, escept for one, which reads (from memory) starting name resolution - [failed].

It then lists a few more (all ok) and then the monitor switches off, and nothing more happens (although the HDD ticks away).

I had a go with DSL, booting from a live CD. Unfortunately I'm not up to much with linux, so I failed to do anything much more than look through the various directories. The Help app wouldn't load, which didn't help. Strangely, I had created both a DSL and a Slax live CD, but neither wouldn't load after I loaded DSL. I checked the BIOS, but it was still looking for the CD at boot.

I'll have another go tonight. All I need is a LAMP setup, so I might try and look for something today to try out tonight.

Thanks,

Mei

Your specs are high enough to run Linux with X windows, although it is likely to be slow, and KDE and Gnome are unlikely to run well. You could try Slackware or Gentoo if you're feeling brave, as they tend to run a little faster than other distros.