help me choose a linux distro for old laptop

[Leros]

I have an old Toshiba laptop:
466Mhz Athlon
64mb ram
4.5gb HD

Windows 98 is too buggy, so Ive been running windows 2000. I have knoppix 3.8 laying around for misc utilities so i decided to install that to the harddrive. It boots very slow and is too slow to enjoy. What is a good linux distro with a fast boottimes and an easy interface. Im a noob to linux, and dont want to learn anything all too hardcore just yet.

Thanks.

 

[kamper]

Before deciding on a distro, there are other things that can help you improve performance. For instance, knoppix runs kde by default right? Probably not a great idea with 64mb of ram so you could look into running a light weight window manager. I'm assuming all you really use this for is basic stuff like browsing and email right? Any window manager should launch your favourite browser/email client the same.

Since knoppix is kind of a showcase distro it probably has a whole bunch of other stuff that you don't really need to run that you can pare off. Or you could do any of this minimizing with any of the mainstream distros (I predict you'll get a few "Debian." and "Ubuntu. It's based on Debian." posts).

 

[bersl2]

DSL

 

[LBmtb]

Another vote for damn small linux.

 

[Netopia]

I third the DSL motion

 

[n0cmonkey]

Slackware.

Get more ram.

 

[Leros]

Eh, its a really old laptop from the prehistoric ages. I dont really need it for anything other than maybe some light websurfing and chatting on the sofa. I dont intend to spend much money on it.

 

[Pythias]

DSL or Puppy

 

[LuckyTaxi]

freebsd running xfce

 

[nweaver]

Gentoo with lynx, Stage 1 install

 

[Nothinman]

Debian.

And get more memory, 64M is practically worthless these days.

 

[Infohawk]

Vectorlinux is supposed to be a small one designed for old machines.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Originally posted by: Pythias
DSL or Puppy

Both are very nice....you might also give Slax a try.