Most suitable Linux Distribution

[ABCD]

Hi,

I have been a long time user of Windows and want to try out Linux to see what the hype's about. I've got an old computer (Pentium 2, 128MB RAM and a 4MB Video card). And the hard drive's only 10GB.

I currently have Windows 2000 installed on the hard drive. I want to keep this and partition the hard drive so I can install Linux along with Windows 2000.

Can people please make some reccomendations on which Linux distribution would be the best. I prefer a stable operating system with good compatibality with software and especially hardware(almost all hardware in the computer's at least 5 years old).

If you post a recommendation could you please let me know the goods and the bads about the distribution?

Thanks to anyone who helps.

 

[talldude123]

The computer is still pretty good. If it was very old (Pentium 1 and below, 32MB RAM, 2GB HD), you would want to try DSL (**** Small Linux).

The easiest and most popular Linux release is Ubuntu. I recommend it.

http://www.ubuntu.com/

 

[macdude425]

I would recommend XUbuntu instead.

http://xubuntu.com

 

[FlashDude]

And I recommend open suse.

http://en.opensuse.org/Welcome_to_openSUSE.org

And don't expect to much from a linux GUI, It still requires good hardware to get good performance

And that's the word from the dude's

you really should try dsl-n (damm small linux-not) It has a nice hdd install and really does perform well with older hardware

 

[jakec]

Try these:

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/

PCLinuxOS .93 Minime/Junior
http://www.pclinuxos.com/page.php?7
BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/download.html

Blag
http://www.blagblagblag.org/download/

Mephis
http://www.mepis.org/

Distros for older Hardware:

Vector Linux 4.3
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

Slackware
http://www.slackware.com/

SLAX Live CD
http://www.slax.org/

BeatrIX
http://www.watsky.net/

Elive:
http://www.elivecd.org/

you can find more here

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Mini_Distributions/
http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributions/Floppy/


if your still unsure of the distro, try these Distro choosers

http://eedok.voidofmind.com/linux/chooser.html
http://www.zegeniestudios.net/ldc/
http://www.linux.org/dist/list.html

hope this Helps,

Jake

 

[Skuzzle]

xubuntu will be reasonably quick as xfce is much more lightweight than kde or gnome.

That'd be my choice (and is my frontend of choice on a debian build with similar hardware)

 

[FlashDude]

For the record I tryed xubuntu on a p3 750 with 64 mb's of ram and it is almost totally unusable. I tryed the same hardware with dsl-n and it is MUCH faster and is really usable. I even installed xp on the same machine and it is more usable then Xubuntu is. But holly cow what a difference just 128mb's of ram is running X is sweet, and pretty.