Need distro recommendation for older computer

Itchie · Jan 26, 2002

Can someone recommend a Linux dist (preferably with the gui) which will work with my computer? The computer is a 486SX with 25 mhz, 20 mb ram, 850 mb hd, onboard video (also have 1mb isa card if necessary), cheap clone isa sound card, 20x ide cdrom, and 14.4 isa modem.

The only purpose of this computer will be to teach myself Linux. I am completely new to Linux, but I am not concerned with ease of use, in fact the harder it is to set up and use, the better, because it is the best way to teach myself Linux. I have been playing with computers since I was a toddler in the early 80's and I tend to grasp things pretty quickly.

Also, the 850 mb hd is not recognized as 850 mb but as 528 mb (this is a limitation of my motherboard). Is there a way to make the computer recognize my hard drive as a 850 mb hd without partitioning it into 2 seperate drives?

Lastly I am on 56k dialup and would prefer the distribution to be small enough to download in a reasonable amount of time. If not, I suppose I won't mind paying ten bucks for the CD.

Anyways, what's the best distro for me?

XWRed1 · Jan 26, 2002

Hmm... Slackware or Zipslack? And when you install, don't choose to install GNOME or KDE.

www.slackware.com

Btw, once Linux boots, it should be able to see and use the entire 850mb of the hard drive.

David · Jan 26, 2002

I would go with any decent distro but a GUI is almost out of the question. You are looking at fvwm if your lucky.

Mind you, try getting X working but, yes, don't even TRY KDE or GNOME. KDE 1 runs slow on a P120 with 24MB RAM!

PhoenixMDM · Jan 26, 2002

Would Blackbox work in that situation? That's the most low-end one i know of, besides TWM, which is like useless, lol.

XWRed1 · Jan 26, 2002

Dude, you can still run X on that. You just wouldn't be able to run KDE or GNOME at an acceptable speed. There's tons of window managers out there that'd work fine. I imagine Blackbox would work fine.

PhoenixMDM · Jan 26, 2002

OOhh, that reminds me, i'm gonna work on my ancient laptop some more, see if i can stick soemthing on it....

Itchie · Jan 27, 2002

Thanks for the responses guys. I have been reading a bit about slackware and it seems pretty good. I'm gonna buy it next time I go to the store.

Itchie · Jan 27, 2002

By the way what is the difference between kde, gnome, and fvwm? Will these be on the CD or do I need to download it seperately?

XWRed1 · Jan 27, 2002

The be on the cd. The difference is that they are just different. FVWM is alot lighter than Gnome or Kde, and should run quite a bit better on an older computer.

gaccm · Jan 28, 2002

kde is meant to be a full enviornment and comes with its own programs that all use the same widgit set (same icons for opening files/saving/etc.)
Gnome is like kde, but isn't as huge. You have no hope of running either.

I seriously doubt you can get any GUI working as, blackbox on a p200 was just barely decent.

As for distro, pick whichever you want (just not mandrake or any new version of redhat). I'd suggest debian, as it has an awesome package upgrading system (apt-get) and you don't seem concerned with effort of learning.

XWRed1 · Jan 28, 2002

I've used an old KDE on a P133, and it was fine. Used lighter stuff like AfterStep on it, and it was perfectly fine.

You people are really underestimated the power of these old computers and the lightness of these programs.

XFree86 was being worked on before the Pentium was even out, alot of people on 386s and 486s ran it.

Itchie · Jan 28, 2002

Thanks people. I'm gonna go to the store either today or tomorrow and buy it. I guess I'll try to install Blackbox, if it doesn't work or if it's too slow I'll try fvwm.

PolyPill · Jan 28, 2002

I put Debian on a 486/66 with a 512k ISA video card. The thing was worthless for the GUI. My only goal was to see if I could get Citrix Meta Frame to run, which it would but with such a crappy video card it wasn't worth it. Also old video cards, pretty much any ISA, isn't supported in Xfree 4.x which is what all the boxed linux's come with. You're not going to have a very good learning experience with this computer unless you like getting frustrated. I know my way around linux pretty well and I was getting ****ed off trying to get some of the hardware to work.

chaim79 · Jan 28, 2002

What is with linux GUI getting so big? When win95 came out I remember running it on 486/25 (8mb RAM). Sure it wasn't the fastest, but it actually ran well enough to use! So what's this with the Linux GUI being unacceptable on anything less then a P120????

David · Jan 28, 2002

As XFree86 is updated, it looses support for old cards and implements new features.

win95 is acceptable on a 25MHz PC, but XFree86 v2.x or 3.x would be as well. Could you run Me or 2k on that? Even 98SE would struggle.

chaim79 · Jan 28, 2002

LOL How true!

Thanks for the news, I'll remember it when I go to install Linux on that pc!

David · Jan 28, 2002

chaim79 said:
LOL How true!

Thanks for the news, I'll remember it when I go to install Linux on that pc!

Give linux a shot - if it doens't work out then at least you can say you've tried linux

XWRed1 · Jan 28, 2002

As XFree86 is updated, it looses support for old cards and implements new features.

The reason they lost support for some cards when they went from 3.3.x -> 4.x was because they redid some of the driver architecture, and noone bothered bringing in support for the older cards till later. X 4.2.0 adds support for a few of the older cards, most notably, S3s.

David · Jan 30, 2002

XWRed1 said:
The reason they lost support for some cards when they went from 3.3.x -> 4.x was because they redid some of the driver architecture, and noone bothered bringing in support for the older cards till later. X 4.2.0 adds support for a few of the older cards, most notably, S3s.

Are S3s still in production? I've seen a few on integrated mobos.

XWRed1 · Jan 30, 2002

S3s are still in *production*.... IBM Thinkpads use S3 chips.... but S3 the company is pretty much gone, so there won't be any new S3 stuff.

S3 is SonicBlue now, they do audio/mp3 stuff.

Need distro recommendation for older computer

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