Hey hows it goin guys n gals, this is my first post

Linux is great i gotta admit

I have a P2 333 server machine. I want to use this to learn linux, and how to be productive and such. However, i don't want to install it on my 2 ghz Athlon Xp machine cuz i dont' want to deal with the complications if any were to arise.

What distro do you recommend? i've tried Redhat 8.0 and it was slow as hell.. Almost too slow to really enjoy linux and i reallllly want to learn it. I hope to use only linux by the end of the year if it's possible.

heres exact system specs

Pentium 2 333mhz
128 mb SDram
10 gig hdd
sound blaster sound
TNT/2 Graphics

Thanks!

Any x-windows manager (KDE, Gnome) will be downright slow on that machine, but just about any CLI (command-line) will be fine. I happen to prefer Slackware 9.0, but that's pretty heavy for a first time linux user (unless you really want to learn linux!). Most of the distros would be okay, though many people recommend Mandrake. If you want to try a GUI, I'd say go with something lighter, such as Blackbox or whatnot. Do a little searching around these forums and you'll find lots of options

You should install blackbox or something like that as you window manager. I recommend not using a GUI at all...thrown in more ram wouldnt hurt either.
good luck

Hmm i suppose your right. Im not sure what i should try now =( i was looking forward to using Red Hat

redhat should be fine as long as you dont use desktops like kde or gnome..they need more memory and will slow your machine

Wait, memory or CPU power? because ic an get some more memory, maybe like 384 Sd ram?

I would recommend upgrading memory no matter what. Especially if you can get it up to 384. That will make a big difference and is always a good idea. Secondly, I'm running Debian 3.0 on my PII 233 and am having no problems with speed when running KDE (at least it's faster than the Win98 OS on the same computer). Debian shouldn't be any harder to work with than RedHat, as long as you read up on it, and you'll learn more about Linux. I think it will be faster than RedHat or Mandrake also, but I don't know for sure...

-rikkulinux

does Debian come with KDE or do i have to install it seperatele?

If this is the case, i may need some help

slackware is a good choice for learning and for your hardware.

Yes, Debian comes with KDE. If you download Debian 3.0rl CDs from linuxiso.org (CDs 1,6,7 should be enough) you can install from those. Once you get Debian installed, 'apt-get install kdebase and kdm and synaptic also, then install the rest of the KDE packages using synaptic. That a two sentence Debian install walkthrough, you should look for a good one if you think the install with be tough. The Very Verbose Debian Walkthrough is very good, but I don't have the link off-hand.

-rikkulinux

So all i need is CD's 1/6/7 right? I'll start downloading those tonight, Thanks for the awesome support!

Maybe i'll try slackware too, does that come with a gui?

thanks again

slackware comes with everything you would probably need on 1 cd but you can download more if you want heh
and yes it comes with your choice of guis

so the first CD comes with KDE/Gnome?

ubers0ldat,

it seems that we're on the same case (ok, yours is better).
I have:
P 133Mhz
32 ram (16 edo & 16 fast dram)
13 gb
no soundcard
no accelerated graph ....

and using Slackware 8.1 with Blackbox as a GUI and it works fine (loads faster than the xp AMD athlon 800Mhz with 320MB ram ) )
... but you can't (well you can, but it takes about 20 sec. to run and it works damn slow even on local files) use Mozilla or Opera. Instead find a smaller (faster that is) software (for browsing I use Dillo (http://www.dillo.org/) ... well it doesn't support css yet but it loads under a second).

What I was trying to say is, that, if you have a weaker machine, you must be more aware of what software (additional) are you installing .. and that's all


Enjoy

P.S. But, if you want to have the machine for server only, (IMHO) there's nothing like the old good console

Yep - KDE, Gnome, windowmaker, xfce, fvwm, twm - and then I added fluxbox from the extras directory.