I'm thinking of trying Linux

zmzhang

Senior member
Feb 17, 2001
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From all of my upgrades, i was able to build another computer. I'm thinking of playing with Linux but i have no idea how to install it. Here are my questions:

1. Which type should i get?
2. How would i convert from fat32 over to what ever linux uses?
3. Since Star Office isn't free anymore, is there any other office program?
4. Is my comp specs ok? I could improve some things if necessary.

Intel Celeron 266mhz
32 mb of ram.
Sis 6326 4mb video card
850mb WD hd
~600 mb Maxtor hd
56k modem
Linksys nic

Thanks
 

n0cmonkey

Elite Member
Jun 10, 2001
42,936
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Originally posted by: zmzhang
From all of my upgrades, i was able to build another computer. I'm thinking of playing with Linux but i have no idea how to install it. Here are my questions:

1. Which type should i get?

An x86 version

2. How would i convert from fat32 over to what ever linux uses?

It will format the drive during the install.

3. Since Star Office isn't free anymore, is there any other office program?

koffice, OpenOffice (open sourced star office 5.2), abiword, etc

4. Is my comp specs ok? I could improve some things if necessary.

Does it work?

Intel Celeron 266mhz
32 mb of ram.
Sis 6326 4mb video card
850mb WD hd
~600 mb Maxtor hd
56k modem
Linksys nic

Thanks

You should upgrade the memory.
 

n0cmonkey

Elite Member
Jun 10, 2001
42,936
1
0
Originally posted by: zmzhang
An x86 version
What i meant was whether i should get Redhat or Suse or something else.

Yeah, that should be fine.

The computer works and how much ram would i need? 64mb? 128?

Need? 32 would be fine. The more ram you have the better it is going to be. Obviously the machine wont be a speed demon, but with some extra ram it might feel a bit better.

 

cleverhandle

Diamond Member
Dec 17, 2001
3,566
3
81
Given the specs of the machine, it going to be slow going. n0c is right in saying that it will work, but you won't want the default GUI installation for the big distros (usually KDE). More RAM will make KDE or GNOME probably just usable, if your patient. A better option would be to look at a window manager like Blackbox/Fluxbox or IceWM. More fun that way, anyway, if you like to experiment.

Now, for an office suite, I think you're going to have problems. OpenOffice is certainly the most stable and useful office suite out there right now, but it's a resource hog. Again, it might be okay if you just want to experiment and see what Linux can do, but you won't want to do daily work on it. KOffice, IIRC, uses a bit less resources than OO, but it's not as stable or well-developed. If you don't mind just having a word-processor, Abiword might work well, but the downside is that requires almost the full set of GNOME packages, even if you don't actually use GNOME as your desktop. Get 128MB if you can, and see how things work. And, again, could be a good excuse - time to learn some TeX.

Just look around the forums for distro recommendations, I guarantee your questions have been answered there somewhere.