Okay, im new to linux, very new, so any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated. If you can point me in the right direction, that would help out alot.

First off, Ive been using windows my whole life, and a little mac, so I know next to nothing on the subject. If you have any good newbie websites that are recommended Ill read them first, so dont flame me if my questions suck.

I have an old pc, Pentium 133, 32ram, 8meg ati video card, 2.1 gig system, cdrom, 3.5 floppy disk drive. Im looking to do a few things with it if possible.
-> I want to install linux (dont know which version is best; or would be best suited to this system),
->with an office suite (star office requires 233mhz, any alternatives,
->and that would be able to connect, ethernet, to another machine running win2K and connected to the web via rogers cable.

Thanx in advance.
You can reach me directly at wildcard_72@hotmail.com

can you please use more relevant thread titles, thanks.

anyway... erm, most distributions would still be ok, even the latest versions of mandrake or redhat *should* be ok to run on your system. BUT you'll have to specifically say no to nearly all applications that you think would make things easy! sorry, but your system IS knocking on a hell of a lot, so using KDE and Gnome is defenitely out of the question.

i'd recommend mandrake (maybe get a slightly older distribution, or rather install an older version of Xwindows) as that comes with a LOT of very lightweight window managers, like blackbox and windowmaker, which will make wrunning a windows-esque desktop a possibility.

as for office stuff.. well i'd say use KOffice, which , although i hate KDE is actaully quite good. You'll need to install KDE to get the programs to work, but you don't need to actaulyl RUN kde, it only needs the library files and such...

books... click that link below, lots of information on there.

ethernet.. erm yeah no problem, a setup program should do it fine.

next time I will use a more appropriate thread title. not a problem.

when taking a look at the available linux versions I encountered:"Mandrake 8.2/i586 | Mandrake 8.2/i586 ISO Image | Mandrake 7.1/SPARC/UltraSPARC ISO Image | Mandrake 7.1/AXP ISO Image | Mandrake 7.0/i486 ISO Image | Mandrake IA64"

Which version am I looking to download?
When i go to download them there are a bunch of files and directories? Do i just burn them straight on a cd?
How do i install the cd? right now there is only "command.com" on my hard drive? what file do I run from on the cd?-or am i approaching this all wrong?

i'd say go for 8.1, 8.2 came out yesterday, but EVERY server is crammed... you might want an older version, say 7.1, which might make it a bit faster, but only as it has less bolt on bits which would slow it down, bits you can say no to anyway. and the cd's will be bootable, if you can't boot it, then there are instructions on making a bootdisk on the cd.

for a guide on downloading and burning (and access to other iso's) check linuxiso.org

i run redhat 7.1 on my server (p200) and it's damn slow when you want to do anything pretty, without the pretty stuff it's great tho. and i don't like pretty stuff anyway... cept my girlfriend

My main concern now a days; is the fatness of Linux distros. it really is a worrying thing. Anyway.

You can use tinyx and any small distro of Linux. I hope you can best use RedHat 5.xx or 6.xx. I am 99% sure it should work on your system.

Try it. Best Luck.

I ran Slackware 8.1 perfectly from a Pentium 120Mhz CPU with only a 3 GB hard drive. Slackware is less bloated than Mandrake or RedHat, and it's force-yourself-to-learn-Linux distribution of Linux. It's not that hard to get installed, the key point is KNOW YOUR HARDWARE. If you're familiar with your hardware (makes, models, chipsets, etc.) you should have an easy install. I didn't know my hardware, so reinstalled it like 5 times. But with every installation I learned more about my system and about Linux in general. For more information on Slackware, go to http://www.slackware.com/install/sysreq.php for system requirements, and then go to it's main page at http://www.slackware.com and go through the links on the left for even more information. I started with Mandrake 8.1 on the same system, with KDE as my desktop environment. It was SLOW. I got rid of KDE and went with Gnome--SLOWER. I tried others and didn't like them. A friend introduced me to Slack and now it's probably the only distro I'll ever use. I also run XFCE as my window manager and it's very fast in comparison. Check out the links and decide for yourself. Oh, yeah, another EXCELLENT source for finding out what distro is best for you is http://www.distrowatch.com. Enjoy, and good luck!