Which linux for this computer?

[KennyH]

Hey peeps, I will be putting together a second computer in the next couple of weeks to play around with linux on. I am looking for something that is able to run relatively fast on this setup. I have used Linux and Unix/BSD variants in the past but it has been prolly two years or so when I was in college. Anyway, here are the system specs, LMK what you think:

PIII 550
BX motherboard
256MB PC133
40GB HDD

TIA

 

[tart666]

to play around with linux on

it's almost too slow for KDE, or Gnome... but more than fine for a server... depends on what you mean by "play"

 

[Nothinman]

It'll be fine with just about anything, 256M memoy is low in my opinion but it won't do too bad.

 

[KennyH]

Yeah, basically all I will be doing is email, web, the normal stuff. I was thinking that KDE or Gnome may be a little on the slow side. So, which window manager would be decent?

 

[xcript]

Fluxbox or XFce 4.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

256MB is plenty IMO. I had no plans to upgrade past 256MB until I started needing to compile things regularly.

Ew, fluxbox :evil:

 

[KennyH]

So, which OS, Redhat? Mandrake? or should I take the plunge and go for Debian (never used this)?

 

[xcript]

Go with Debian.

BBWF, I'll ignore that.

 

[Barnaby W. Füi]

What exactly do you want to accomplish?

 

[KennyH]

What exactly do you want to accomplish?

Email, web, and the normal stuff. I would like to use a distro that isn't going to take weeks to get connected to the internet, sound not working, etc. Debian may be a little too advanced for me right now.

 

[xcript]

Yeah, you'd probably be better off with Redhat or Mandrake.

I'm just sick of having to recommend them to everyone.

 

[drag]

Just install anything.

It doesn't realy matter. Go with Debian or Mandrake. If you don't like it, install something different.

The only thing you'd waste is a bit of time, bandwidth, and a CD-R disk.

Mandrake is more windows-user friendly, so try that first. (just a segestion)

Pentium 550 and 256 megs is fine.

With a full fledged KDE or GNOME desktop enviroment, you get all the fun features and Eye-candy that Windows XP enjoys. (file manager, thumbnailing, anti-aliased everything, etc etc). But that uses CPU cycles, and you have only 550 of them.

If things seem to be dragging along to much, try out a spartan window manager like Fluxbox. Many Linux users prefer that even if there computer can easiely handle a much more complicated GUI enviroment they like the minimalism, because to much complexity to a interface may be convienent but slows THEM down, not nessicarially the computer and is annoying.

 

[KennyH]

Haha, I hear ya xcript! I think I am going to with Redhat.

 

[MrYogi]

mandrake or redhat