Which Linux distro for Pentium 200 mmx rig?

[Kubla Khan]

I'm hoping to install linux on a Pentium 200 MMX rig that I just put together out of some spare parts. I'm not sure yet what I want to do with the rig, but I have a couple older linux CDs here that I could use to start out (Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 and Corel Linux 1.0). Is there something more current that would still run reasonably well on this rig?
Here's the current specs:
Pentium 200 MMX
32 MB EDO RAM
7 GB Maxtor 5400 RPM IDE Drive (I also have a 7200 RPM 2 GB Seagate SCSI Drive that I could throw in if I get my hands on a controller)
ATI Rage II Integrated on MB

I know this kind of question comes up a lot, but nothing really applicable came up in my forum searches.

 

[Electrode]

I've been running Slackware 8.1 on a PMMX 166 laptop with 96 MB of RAM and a 3 GB hard drive for quite awhile. No performance problems at all.

It should be fine on your system too, but I'd suggest you add RAM. EDO isn't very expensive (I plan to buy a 64 MB stick from crucial using the money I get from returning pop cans) and it'll make a world of difference, especially if you intend to run KDE or GNOME.

 

[Agamar]

Just about any distro will run on that setup, but I wouldn't wish a gui interface running that slow... Stay clear of the Redhat new gui unless you have at least a P-II 400 with 64M...If you can stand it, you could go ahead and use the "classic" x-windows from 6.2

 

[TheOmegaCode]

freebsd and windowmaker

 

[n0cmonkey]

Standard answer #1: Any would be fine, just avoid KDE and gnome. They will work, just slowly.
Standard answer #2: Avoid RedHat and Mandrake, go with Debian or Slackware (gentoo maybe too if you know what you are doing)
Standard answer #3: Any will be fine, but remember, no modern OS would be a speed daemon on that hardware.
Standard answer #4: OpenBSD.

 

[sciencewhiz]

standard answer #5: always listen to n0cmonkey

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: sciencewhiz
standard answer #5: always listen to n0cmonkey

Standard answer #5a: Unless he is wrong. (its been known to happen... rarely... )

 

[mrzed]

Originally posted by: Electrode


It should be fine on your system too, but I'd suggest you add RAM. EDO isn't very expensive (I plan to buy a 64 MB stick from crucial using the money I get from returning pop cans) and it'll make a world of difference, especially if you intend to run KDE or GNOME.

Just be aware that a lot of the Pentium 1 chipsets cannot address more than 64 MB of RAM. If you put in more, you may be at best wasting your money, and at worst, possibly degrading performance. check the particulars on you motherboard before you go over 64 to make sure.

I am in the same situation at work, I want to use Linux for student computers, but being limited to 64 MB limits the options for a nice GUI.

 

[ebaycj]

you are somewhat wrong.

Classic pentium (socket 5/7) chipsets can ADDRESS more than 64mb of ram just fine. All intel chipsets can address at least 256mb of ram (430FX,TX and VX (i think)), sometimes much more (430HX).

There are some s5/7 chipsets that refuse to CACHE over 64mb (and some have different limits to how much they can cache, like 128mb or 256mb). So what happens in these situations is that the first 64mb are cached, and the rest is uncached (SLOW). This was a big problem with win95/98/ME, because these OS's loaded themselves at the TOP of usable ram (out of the cached range) and thus exhibited immense slowdowns when you broke the cache limit barrier. Modern OS's such as *BSD, Linux, Windows NT/2k/xp, and others, do not have this limitation. They load themselves at the BOTTOM of usable ram (mostly within the cached range) and only suffer minor performance penalties. In most cases, with new OS's, it is better for performance to put in the extra RAM (even if it won't be cached) to avoid swapping to disk.

Note that the above paragraph about caching only applies if your system has any L2 cache on the motherboard at all. Many older systems were built WITHOUT any cache, and thus all memory would be uncached (SLOW).

ebaycj

 

[Eyebeam]

go to www.lycoris.com and www.lycoris.org... really nice "user friendly " version of (Caldera???) Linux. Looks a LOT like XP... ran fine for me on a Celeraon 333 with 128 meg of ram... there is a free disk image you can download (try the .org site for info about where) then you can use the "start" -> "configure system" -> "update system" process to get it up to the latest version. Or you can spend $30 and avoid the trouble and get it on CD. I only mention it to you because it's the first "Win user-friendly" distro of Linux I've run across in my limited experience with the OS... I like it!

Steve

 

[jhu]

hey, why don't you go with net-bsd. the base install is pretty small and fast

 

[Kubla Khan]

Thanks for all the suggestions guys...so would I be better off installing on of my older versions of linux (like the Caldera 2.3) as compared to something newer? I'm a linux noob, so I'd probably have a hard time configuring a minimal install of something more current....at least that's what I'm assuming.

 

[TheWart]

i learned the most about linux when i got going with gentoo. the docs are great, and the mailing list is superb. i have it nicely on almost the same exact specs (was it a Sony VAIO?).

 

[BurnItDwn]

200mhz is plenty fast for any linux distro, however 32mb of ram will not get along well with most of the newwer GUI stuff. I personnally have ran Redhat 5 (for a short time), 6(for a while until my first linux box died) , and 7.0 (currunt) , as well as a DosLinux (just to get aquainted with it) before that, and i played with FreeBSD 4.4 a bit. I had no problems running Redhat 5 or 6 on an AMD K6 233 that had 64MB of ram. It handled Gnome just fine. Try whatever Distro of linux looks the mast appealing to you, if it runs too slow, chango to something with less GUI dependence. Redhat is easy, Mandrake looks easy, FreeBSD (yea i know its not linux) is easy ...

 

[drag]

I think it is always best to go with the newest distro version possible in order to avoid any old bugs and be compatable with any porgrams you want to downlosd and use. Also as of late Linux has got easier to use on several levels of magnitude when compared to older stuff.

I once installed linux on a old ibm thinkpad (386 no math coprocessor and 8 megs of ram). I used a floppy disk distro that used older libraries (slackware 3 era) and there wasn't much you could do with it. Sure it was linux but it wasn't fun.

Try a little trial and error. If you screw up a installation you can try it again. You can use a modern distro and still get good performance as long as you don't try to install everything. (it can be faster than older distros, because the code would be more evolved) Just keep the services to a minimum (ftp, apache, sshd etc etc) and use something other than kde or gnome for a window manager and you should do fine.
(I like icewm for a window manager, but you could start off with fvwm)

Also a good thing to figure out how to do is compile a custom kernel. That way you can trim of the exess fat (like get rid of scsi support) and save memory and get a slight performance increase. It is not necessary though.

Of course you can go with Openbsd. Which has modern bug-free (reletivly) code and has a very minimalistic attitude. Its just a pain to use if you are newb to unices (of course with a steep learning curve you can learn more faster (because you have to) as long as you don't mind being frustrated).

 

[Kubla Khan]

After trying out install of Caldera and Corel, it looks like one of my main problems was my lack of RAM. I got another 32 MB today so hopefully that'll make a difference once I get the sticks in. I burned discs for Mandrake 8.2, and I'm downloading Slackware 8.1 and Red Hat 6.2 right now. Hopefully soon I'll get something going that I'm happy with. I'm thinking that I'll probably use the rig as a print server and a web browser for those times when I die early in a CounterStrike round.

 

[drag]

I like to telnet into my main desktop to start and stop the cd player and play the settings while I am dead in a game. If I start quake3 (X window with quake as window manager) via telnet it will display all 3d stuff the on my main machine with all the in-game comments and console stuff will display on my remote machine as text, hehe

 

[Kubla Khan]

Woohoo! I'm posting from my Slackware 8.1 install. However, I choose the k95 windows manager (or whatever it's called) and it seems to need some major configuration (which hurts my newbie brain). Right now I'm stuck in 640x480, my mouse wheel doesn't work, and I seem to have to run most of the programs from the command line. Mozilla runs, but it's a little slow rendering pages, so I think I might try Opera.

More work will follow....

 

[thornc]

Try using IceWM....I think you can find it on the extras directory/cd!!