Will this system work?

[Wyno]

I found a used system at a local computer store and it has a p 166 and 48 megs of ram and a 2 gig hard drive. I was just wondering if this would work to install linux and get used to it before I put it on my main system. Just wondering if it would run ok.

[PolyPill]

Anything 386 and up will work with linux, it just depends how long you want to wait for things.

I think Mandrake is compiled for 586 class computers.

If this if your first Linux experience don't expect much from a slower machine. So many people put linux on a slow machine then get mad at how slow it is even though it's faster than if you were to put windows on the same box.

I would say the min requirements for linux with a gui would be about what you've got there. You really only need a 500mb hd, but 2 gigs should be enough. If the video card is under 2mb you wont be very happy.

[Wyno]

I'm not sure whqt video card it has but the store has a 4 meg card for 5 bucks so its not a big deal. I just want another computer to learn on and one for the kid so she can play her games on her own machine and I figure for $99 bucks its a good deal

[PolyPill]

Do what you want.

You'll always see an increase in proformance and happiness with the more powerful your system is. Once ou get past the min requirements the rest is just how much money do you want to spend and what you're going to use this for.

For learning, browsing the web, and using it as a small http/ftp server this machine is fine, I wouldn't want to work on it on a daily basis.

[David]

You may need a slightly older version of linux for that box. I have turbolinux 6 running on a p120/16MB and it is painfully slow. (see the 'Can YOU help?' thread in General discussion).

[PolyPill]

Originally posted by penguinfreak
You may need a slightly older version of linux for that box. I have turbolinux 6 running on a p120/16MB and it is painfully slow. (see the 'Can YOU help?' thread in General discussion).

Why would you need an older version? The only thing that makes the newer versions run slower on older machines is because by default more crap is installed. If you were to install the same amount of services it runs just as good, if not better than an older version.

[David]

I'm thinking more about X and the fact that yes, more crap is installed. If you pick up an old cheap distro, you don't have to spend £30-£100 and not use half the software. With old PCs you wnat a usable GUI, you don't need to worry about font AA or if you have XFRee 4.1 or whatever.

[Wyno]

You guys confuse me with things like Distro and gui and the such. I guess I just need to install it and see what you all are talking about.

[XWRed1]

Newer versions of XFree86 aren't any slower than the older ones. They may even be faster.

Its "Microsoft-thinking" to think that newer versions will always be slower.

[WesMarden]

I first had redhat 5.x running on a regular P166 with 24 MB ram. I had it going on a 500 meg partion, so I think you should be able to get it to run on your machine.

I was running Mandrake 7.0-2(can't remember for sure) on the same machine about 2 years ago. It was slow with gui(Graphical User Interface), but it served as my desktop machine. I think part of that problem with the GUI was it only had 1-2 megs of video memory.

So I think yes you can run Linux fairly well. I am more of a redhat fan for your system from my experience, though Mandrake does have a simple install. The next system I build will probably have mandrake as its OS. But I have current versions of both redhat & mandrake.

[PolyPill]

Originally posted by Wyno
You guys confuse me with things like Distro and gui and the such. I guess I just need to install it and see what you all are talking about.

Distro= Distribution = something like Redhat, or Mandrake. They're both linux just versions put out by other companies.

GUI = Graphic User Interface. Your desktop with the mouse, like KDE or Gnome.

Also, penguinfreak mentioned something about paying. You're not forced to pay for linux, you can download it for free and make a cd. When you pay what you're getting is a nice box, some manuals, and help with the installation.

I'm all for supporting companies like Redhat, but I feel I've bought my share of their boxed products and I don't need thier manuals and extra help.

If you buy boxed they have a very nice manual which, if used properly, will help a newbie a lot. If money is an issue, just post your questions here, there are many people on this board capable of helping.

[chaim79]

If you don't look forward to downloading a CD image (56k line maybe?) just head over to www.cheapbytes.com They sell cd's of linux for cheep, often just the cost of the cd, burning time, and shipping.

That's where I went for my first try at linux.

I would suggest getting something allong the lines of Redhat 6.2 I've heard that anything earlier has security problems and I have redhat 7.1 and that installs way to much. But you do have your choice, even redhat 7.2 (the latest version) can install and run on the specs you listed. Since I ran it on a p133 64mb ram and 1gb hd. I know it'll work.

It kinda sounds like you are new to linux, I would suggest going to www.linuxdoc.org and keeping it handy, they have many "howto" documents that can help you figure out what is what and where to go. Also I would suggest getting a book for linux, I started with "linux for dummies" and it was very helpfull for me to figure out what was going on.

At any rate. If you run into problems feel free to post a question or two, or ten. There are many Linux pro's here who would be glad to help.

[Wyno]

Thanks all for the help. I will be getting layed off shorlty and looking forward to spending some time with Linux. I'm sure I'll be back with questions.