Please Help! What Distro & version of Linux Can i load on a 486 w/48mb ram (Linux Newbie here!)

[abu]

Hey guys 'n gals..

Ok, I have already tried Redhat 6.2 and Mandrake 7/7.2.... (always in a dual boot configuration...and i didnt use linux much because of that)

Well, I've whiped yo a:
Intel 486 DX
48MB of edo ram
850 MB HD
cdrom, floppy....etc

Now... Can u guys tell me, which Distro 'n version of linux i should install on this baby... I would like it to have the easiest installation as posible (since i dont know much about linux)

And i would like X runnin...with KDE (2.0?) and Gnome...

Advice would be apreciated...
thanks 😉

 

[abu]

bump

 

[Priit]

Pretty much every distro should run on that machine, question is _HOW_ it runs. KDE 2.0 is IMHO a bit overkill, it would probably be as fast as W2k on that hardware. I say get some older RedHat (6.1 or 6.2) or Mandrake (7.0 or older), SUSE is pretty nice, too. KDE 1.1.x runs pretty fine on 486 with 32Mb of RAM...

 

[smp]

Linux is great for old hardware.. I'm pretty sure that you can run Mandrake on that machine.. I don't see why not.. I got a Pentium 75 running mandrake, and it's my web/ftp/server, my router and firewall.. if a p75 could do all that with Mandrake.. I'm sure you can do some cool stuff with a 486.. check the specs..

 

[Damaged]

Can't use the standard Mandrake distro on a 486. Why? It's compiled using pgcc. Meaning pentium specific compiler optimisations. Hence, no worky on a 486. I think they make a non-pentium version though.

 

[jbird]

Red Hat 5.2 will run on your equipment. I'm not sure about Mandrake 6.0. A number of the newer distributions require a Pentium processor, min. 32 mg of ram.

 

[BOFH]

I run Debian on a couple 486 DX2/66's with 16MB of ram. One has a ~320MB of hdd and one has ~500MB. runs just fine. I should mention I would *NOT* run X ona 486 in any of the ways you're asking about. the Win2k analogy is close, but win98 or so would probably be closer to the speed you'd get as Win2k probably wouldn't install on that.