I've got this computer dumped aside for a while, thought of using it to try out the linux os which i'm completely alien to. It's a Pentium MMX 166 mhz with 32mb memory, 2gb hard disk. Just going to use it to explore the linux user interface, can it be done? If so, which linux os should I go for? There's so many out there..

Which user interface? There are many and I think you should forget about the actual KDE (runs smooth with 256MB RAM). But for command-line and some light-weight GUIs it will be fine!

What's command line GUI? Is is like DOS?

Which light-weight GUI would you recommend?

GUI means Graphical User Interface
and command-line is only text based, like DOS.

Fortunately I was never forced to use something else than KDE. So maybe someone else should make a recommendation.

ok, thanks for your help anyway.. anyone else can recommend me a simple linux os to install?

humm, i'm newbie too but i've tried damn small linux and i think it has a gui, though i only used it in cmd line, but i found it esay to install and very very light, it runs smoothly on 486 100mhz 8mb ram from boot diskette
hope it helps

Look at this may be of help

http://users.netwit.net.au/~pursang/lofat.html

I'd recommened Damn Small Linux too! Its so damn small...

My firewall is running mandrake 10.0. Its a Pentium 200Mhz with 64 megs of ram. Other than having to use text mode install (press F! when it boots from the cd) I dont remember having any particular problems with the install. its current uptime is 79 days and the last time it was rebooted was to upgrade the mandrake version its running.
The kernel image its running has the append statement:
append="noapic pci=noacpi devfs=mount acpi=off resume=/dev/hda1"
So you might need something like that given the age of the hardware.

If you install X on it dont expect much in the way of speed

haha will try damn small linux first.. 50mb os! wow!

thats true any distro with the correct tweak can be used on practicaly any system you can also if fell the courage can try to install a LFS but it is a bit complcated but you can make a system abot 8MB (for runing only apache for example)

May recomed to use Damm Small Linux plus the Link i gave you and Plus GOOGLE Search of "Low end machines" in http://google.com/linux 8)

Another distribution you'll want to check out is DeLi Linux. It stands for "Desktop Light" and is design for older computers by using lightweight software.

Bill