Hi I am a Linux newbie trying to find a good distro to put on my 433mhz computer. It is a Celeron 433mhz w/384mb ram and a Voodoo 3 video card.

The problem is, Mandrake Linux 10.0 runs like crap on this config. I'd imagine that Fedora core 2 and Suse 9.2 would be pretty slow too. I want a distro that is quite fast(or at least reasonably fast) out of the box.

I also need something that is newbie friendly, good hardware support would also be nice.

A really desirable trait would be easy networking setup. This 433 system runs Windows 98 and connects to the internet through a Windows XP system set up as a gateway. I'd love to have a Linux distro that can automatically network with a Windows XP system for an internet connection. However, there may be no distros that can easily network with wind0ze. So if there is nothing, I'll just accept a distro that meets my other criteria.

You should be able to configure any distrobution to run without using up too much processing power/memory. For expample if you want X windows, I know KDE has an option for slower processors that can be selected. As for it being perfect right out of the box, I don't think that would be quite common considering you also want it to run fast and user friendly. The more user friendly something is, gernerally the slower its gonna be :P

Have you tried configuring your X windows to add less effects (I'm assuming you're using X as you seem to like user friendly things.)

I've never set up a network with windows, so I can't help you there.

Sorry this wasnt much of a response, gimme some feedback and I'll try to help a bit more next time...

i have a k6 450mhz. Suse and fedora ran way to slow and clanky. i put slackware 10 on it and it pretty much zooms, even in X. its not exactly newbie friendly, but neither is it to complicated (if i was able to do it...)

KDE and Gnome are pretty much a nono. (though i only have 64mb ram and an 8mb graphics card, so you may beable to use them) Xfce is ok, but windowmaker is the beast wm on this, its very responsive. I am MS free now, so cant advise on the networking.

Good luck

Slack10, Dropline Gnome,

Celery 433 128 mb RAM 8mb Video

what is dropline gnome?

I'm running Slackware 9.1 (haven't upgraded to 10 yet) and I'm using KDE (yeah, kde, but gnome wasn't faster either). But this Slackware on this 400mhz k6-2 running KDE 3.2.3 feels like Mandrake running on a 1.2 ghz KDE 2.x

Slackware's not the most friendly thing to set up, but it's worth it.

Have you thought about other desktop environments? Fluxbox, window maker, etc? They're not as friendly, but they're faster. Window Maker would be my next alternative if I wasn't allowed to use KDE or GNOME. Try xcfe first before window maker.

BTW, how slow is stuff running on your system? Lately i've been counting load up times for things. Konsole takes 2-4 secs to load up, konqueror 5-6. For me, that was faster than before, but I'm not sure if those are the speeds you're talking about.

Have a look at a live distro, MEPIS this will give you some idea of how it will run on your system as it slower off of a CD. Mepis has hardware detection that is second too none in the Linux world, newb friendly with excellent friendly forum support.

For more info see here.
HTH

Mathew

check out libranet - it's kind of a user-friendly debian and installs relatively easily. the 2.8.1 is now free of charge.

i also like Mepis. It was pretty fast on my 400mhz machine, 128MB ram whereas several other distros were sluggish.

Libranet might be good. Does anyone have any experience with Vector Linux or Yoper? Both of these sound like they meet my speed criteria.

Mandrake is bloated. Try Fedora. I'm running RH9 w/ KDE on a Pentium II 350 w/ 128MB of PC133 RAM on an i440BX Chipset board (Asus P2B-LS) now, and it actually runs pretty well.

Vector is easy enough to set up. It is based on slackware but comes configured pretty good. Also, Dropline GNOME is a slack tailored i686 optimized version of gnome for slackware. www.dropline.net/gnome

lol, I had a good laugh when I read that. I think your best choices are yoper or slackware personally, if you want an easier interface go for vector, but be aware there's no kde/gnome.

if you want speed, don't use kde or gnome. Yes, both are very nice and easy to use, but because of that, it becomes more cpu/ram needy, yes you can tell it to use less, or you could turn to another source. Other desktop managers and windows managers would speed things up about. I myself have a p2 400 with 256k of ram running on ROX with blackbox as the WM, and it runs fast, no lag.

DM/WM to look into:
windows maker
ROX
blackbox (and anything made off it)
Waimea
FVWM

thats just to name a few. There are MANY more out there.