Hey everyone!
I use to be into linux a lot when i was in high school, and kinda lost interest. now i want tog et back into it. i want to install it on a computer with these specs
AMD K6-2 450
256 megs fo ram ( can be upgraded to 768)
8.4 gig hard drive
ATI Rage Fury Pro with 32 megs of ram

what distros would be good for this.


thanks!

Any of them. I don't say this to be snide, it's just that no-one can asnwer this question for you.

What distro you choose depends on what kind of distro you want. I'd suggest you read through the distros forums and visit the various distros sites and read up on them.

They all have their pros and cons, you just need to find the one that "fits" your personality and needs.

I will advise you to look closely at things like package handling, how it deals (or doesn't deal) with dependencies, and how upgrades are done. I personally prefer meta-distros as one never needs to install an upgrade as it's a rolling process.

If nothing else, pick one and try it out to see how you like it. Try several. There are some good LiveCD versions around that can give you some feel for the particlular distro befoe installing it. Just bear in mind that the LiveCD won't run nearly as fast as an installedd version, but is good to check things out.

thanks for the input.
i know pretty much all distributions will run. the only thing i am worried about (and i probably should fo said this in the first place) if will this PC be able to run the GUI for such distributions as Red Hat or Mandrake or Fedora Core with ease

I like Slackware. It can be a much lighter install than some of the others. If you want something really light, try VectorLinux. Also if you're worried about the window manager being too demanding, try using something like fvwm or xfce or fluxbox. But given your specs you should be able to expect adquate performance from KDE or Gnome.

You shouldn't have any problems there. Only thing I would recommend looking in to is support for your graphics card as many distros have some problems with the ATI drivers.

If you really want some recommendations to try out, I'd look in to SimplyMepis as a good first look at what your machine can do with it. It's a liveCD version that, if you like it and it supports all your hardware, can do an HDD installation right from the booted live environment.

If you're looking for something a bit lighter and more customized, take a look at Gentoo. I would only recommend this if you're familiar with your machine, comfortable with compiling, and willing to invest some time in getting the system up and running. The stage3 install is the easiest way to go as everything you need to get the system up and running is provided. Gentoo is NOT a good choice for a Linux newbie unless you're seriously looking to learn the nuts and bolts of Linux. If you really want to learn this sort of thing, do a stage2 install of Gentoo. It'll be an education.