Help me pick a Linux distro for a very slow computer

[timzak]

I've got an HP Pavilion in my garage that I use to play mp3s. It's currently running Win2k (very slowly) and I'm looking for a good Linux distro to replace Win2k on it. All it will be doing is playing mp3s. I might occasionally use it for research/reference on the web, but that will be rare. Because the computer is so slow, I want a light-weight distro, but I'd still like a nice-looking GUI. Here are the system specs:
Celeron 466
256MB ram (maxed out)
Intel integrated graphics (circa Win98 days...610? 810? can't remember)
SB Live!
15GB Maxtor 5400rpm

I've researched:

DSL (very cool, but GUI isn't as pretty as I'd like)
DSL-N (still in alpha stage)
MepisLite
antiX (still in development)
Puppy Linux
Xubuntu

Basically, I'm looking for the best combination of eye candy and performance on this old machine. I'd prefer for the multimedia codecs to be installed out of the box so I can just install and start playing mp3s.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Jeff7181]

I used to have an Ubuntu 5.10 VMware appliance that was designed for "secure web browsing." The virtual hard disk image was around 250 MB I think... so... you should be able to strip an Ubuntu distro down to the bare minimum needed for playing MP3's.

 

[Brazen]

I would reccommend Xubuntu if you are wanting something lite on the resources. MP3 support is not installed by default, but you will be hard-pressed to find a free opensource operating system that does due to the licensing issues. There are very good instructions at help.ubuntu.com on how to get mp3 support installed (it should be the same steps for Xubuntu and Ubuntu).

 

[nordloewelabs]

if you didnt want to go online on that machine, i would say, keep Win2K and:

1) disable most Services and start-up apps;
2) disable the few niceties and eye-candy of Win2K;
3) disable video acceleration;
4) disable wallpaper and screensaver;
6) backup and delete most of your fonts (keep less than 50);
7) disable the Network Cards;
8) etc...

tested on a ol' ThinkPad P2 400Mhz with 64Mb (sixty-four!) of RAM
running XP Home... your baby will boot to the desktop in less than a
minute! what you will be able to do with such stripped-down comp
afterwards, is another story....... 😛 MP3s will play fine, though!

if you prefer to go for a lighter OS, i would recommend Puppy Linux....
trying to get speed, functionality and eye-candy in an old machine is
impossible. you need to define your priorities and draw the line
somewhere. :-/