any advice for a linux distro for old pcs?

[raggie33]

this pc is from the ice age its like a 200 mhz with 64 megs a ram and a video card that has 1 meg card lol.i need a cool distro that will work on it

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Damnsmall Linux maybe? I think it's one of the tiniest ones out there.

 

[matrixshaman]

Not sure but this is one of my favorite versions and due to size I think it's more likely to run on your computer. 50 Megs total and it can run off a CD or USB flash drive OR the hard drive. www.damnsmalllinux.org
It has a Firefox browser, email program, autoconfigure word processors and all the usual stuff - great setup and I've found it pretty stable.
beat me to it by seconds there PW

 

[Eugene]

Slackware can run on older/smaller systems. My home samba server is running on a 500MHz mini itx board with 128M ram and booting from a 128M CF card.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Just found a Slakware-based distro called Austrumi, also aimed at older computers.

 

[raggie33]

cool ty everyone i aint sure if its worth keeping thia old dog.man i never new pcs was this slow lol

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Try using an original IBM XT running a 2mhz CPU and 640k of RAM. That'll make your machine seem like a screamer! :huh:

 

[raggie33]

lol i bet sadly austrmi just did reboots dureing install.about to thow pc off cliff and in a river

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Bummer, Raggie. Have you tried Damn Small Linux yet?

 

[raggie33]

yeah sadly it didnt see my wireless card.puppy see.s my card but crashes when i try auto dhcp.i think its because puppy loads so much in ram matter fact it load the whoile os in ram usaly thats why its so fast on a real pc.tryied to install it to hardrive rather tehn live cd and i got kernal panic.my new pc rocks pw its a amd x2 6000.im saveing to get 4 gigs a ram for it

 

[PhotonWrangler]

Cool Raggie - that sounds like a nice machine. I just heard on the radio today that Vi$ta can't address any more than 3 gigs of ram though. Is that true?

 

[raggie33]

Cool Raggie - that sounds like a nice machine. I just heard on the radio today that Vi$ta can't address any more than 3 gigs of ram though. Is that true?

well i thought it could do 4 gigs in 32 bit vivtsa and 32 gigs in 64 bit.but microsoft may of messed up lol.4 gigs is kinda a waste but i need to sticks a ram to run in dual mode so i figure it will be cheapest to get 2 2 gig stick should be like 150 total when i get saved up i will have to sell my old pcs and stuff

 

[h_nu]

Raggie, check distrowatch.com. They have lots of useful information.

If older versions of damnsmalllinux are available you might try them. Some old computers work well with syslinux and others with isolinux. With only 64 MB you might not be able to run xwindows for a GUI with some distros.

I think damnsmalllinux, austrumi, or puppy may be your best bets. I think you can tell puppy not to load into RAM.

Good luck and let us know how it turns out.

 

[ACMarina]

Xubuntu??

 

[carrot]

I have used DamnSmallLinux for a really long time. The creator, John, is always tweaking and upgrading it, so it just gets better and better. I ran a P2 Thinkpad for the longest time on DSL and it was great... I enjoyed it so much it became my primary computer.

I've also had great success using Slackware on older machines... it makes them perform almost as well as new machines running bloaty operating systems.

 

[raggie33]

cool info everyone thank you.i like damn small lol funny how that os has drivers for more stuff then windows has lol and windows drivers are sometimes biger then the damnsmall linux download lol

 

[Fallingwater]

I'm using Damn Small Linux on a 200mhz Pentium MMX with 64 megs of ram and a decrepit S3 video card. Seems to run fine...