Well, I'm bring back an old computer PIII 450MHz(i think), 96MB RAM, no graphics card or hard drive yet....anyways i'm planing on using it for homework, research, chatting, reports, learning how to use linux, learning to hack, really old games(FF7, Rainbow Six, just old school games that are kicking around, HL1)
I know nothing of Linux, and it will be on a network with a windows machine.
So what version of Linux should i use?

id say an older version of red hat, but don't trust me on that.

How about Vector Linux? Works well on older hardware. Also doesn't automatically come up in a GUI. Has some light weight window managers. Worked well on a 450 MHz 128 Meg system.

F_M

well there are a lot of different distributions out there but my preference is debian so I would advise you to use it... the stable version (sarge) of course, you'll probably find it later a little outdated in some months but it has the advantage to be rock solid and once it is set up you can forget about it, seem to me to be a good environment to learn linux without having to solve problems you won't understand at this point. Later you will probably want to upgrade to testing which is newer or even maybe unstable...
Good luck!
Edit: don't use kde or gnome or this machine you gonna find it slow... go for fluxbox for example...

see what do i know?

I would suggest Slackware. www.slackware.com.

Tux,

I was looking at that before...would your recammend the SOHO version or should i hunt down what i need? like Open Office and GiMP and all that good freeware...

Slackware looks really...boring...next to VL....what are the pros and cons to both?

If you can find Mandrake 8.0, by download or gift, it worked great on that generation of computer, it was designed for it. I used Drake 8.0 on a 450 MHZ laptop with 96MB ram, I think it was only 4GB HD, and dual booted with Win98, and only stopped when I got a new 1.6GHZ machine. It wasn't slow. Look up requirements for the good stuff like OPenOffice.org and Firefox; if they fit, you will run as if up to date. It not, then try old Star Office 5.x and Mozilla.

Wish I could give some details. Vector is based on Slackware. I'm trying to learn linux also, so my first thing to do was load up a bunch of distros. I bought a package from one of the online CD places. Gave me 12 different distros. I've loaded 6 of them and so far, I like Slackware. The Vector installer seemed a little more user friendly, at least to me.

As for learning linux. I like that Slackware doesn't automatically assume you are going to use a GUI. It's also one of the original linux distros and from what I've read, it's stuck to the track that it's been on from the start.

From what I know of Slackware, it's going to be the easiest for me to learn on. It makes you do a lot of the configuration, so you get the hands on work. I tried the others listed in my profile, and they did a lot for the user. This is great to make it usable for the masses, but not for the person that wants to learn the ins and outs.

Hope this helps.

F_M

I have slackware 10.1 running on a 400MHz box, it runs fast enought when I don't use KDE.

Couple questions...what is GUI? and what is KDE?

Next, there is a lot of cool stuff out there will i have to settle because my computer sucks?

Do computer specs matter when it comes to learning to program...because i know when learning your first boat load of programs aren't heavy...so would it matter?

A GUI is a grafical user interface, which is often used to describe a program that alters configuration files which you could also edit by hand. Enviroment"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUI

KDE is short for "the K Desktop Enviroment" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KDE one of the most commom desktop eviroments.

GUI - Graphical user interface (kind of like windows is for dos)

kde is a desktop environment (way to heavy for that slow computer) gnome is heavy too one of the advantages of linux over windows on older hardware is that with windows you only get one choice in desktop environment/WM :Windows Windows XP is about as heavy as KDE. with linux you can choose from many DE/WM and run even the newest linux on old hardware and with ok speed too.

(off topic but M$ has a deal with intel they make their software need the latest and greatest cpu & intel gives them chip specs before anyone else gets them -THis is one of the main reasons you must get a new computer every couple years just to use new software.)

I wouldn't install an old distro just cause you have an old computer get a new distro and use a light wm like fluxbox, xfce, iceWM or something like that. You should be able to learn linux and programming on that old computer

Whats a distro? or a distor? or a whatever?


So if i'm understanding your correctly...i can have a different looking desktop? so you have the kind that sorta looks like windows, but then you can change it to look like something else with an installation? or can you change how it looks?
I sound like a total noob but i swear i know more then it looks like it do! lol....

Thanks for the help...i still haven't decided which Linux OS i will use, but aslong as i can use Open Office, FireFox, gAIM(or any other chat serves), GiMP, and a couple games...and i'm set...i think Slackware might be able to do it, if it can't just let me know.

I was on Linux.org and it said Microsoft was enjoying an Illegal Monopoly...what the hell are the talking about?