linux for newbie

[gangster]

i am going to try linux on an old, spare machine (486 with either ati or nvidia video card) and am looking for advice on which linux package to start with. i have zero linux experience but lots of time to learn. still, i would like something as automated as possible.

thanks in advance!

[Marshmallowman]

Well all the newer easy to use ones really need a faster system, and are compiled for at least 586, some 686.

But old 486 flavours are still around if you look, truth is unless you have a specific job for the 486 I would think playing around with linux on a 486 is going to be a no fun situation..

[gangster]

ok, thanks. so, if i had a p4 2.4 would that make my options and original request realistic?

[UtwigMU]

Well my experience was following: I had 2 identical boxes (computer room): Duron 700MHz/256MB RAM, Ati Rage which were set to dualboot XP and RH8.

Compared to XP Redhat felt slower.

[VJ]

Re: linux for newbie

Originally posted by gangster
i am going to try linux on an old, spare machine (486 with either ati or nvidia video card) and am looking for advice on which linux package to start with. i have zero linux experience but lots of time to learn. still, i would like something as automated as possible.

Some linux distributions still offer a version compiled for i486; I have an older Mandrake for i486 lying around. But perhaps the folks in the Alternative lifestyles-forum might suggest one...

Bear in mind that for any userfriendlyness you'll need XWindows (graphical userinterface), and that it won't run very fast on a i486 (there are optimized windowmanagers though).


Jörg

[Marshmallowman]

you can find reasonable 486 linuxs but they are quite basic and me be hard to configure.

Using some recent hardware will allow you to use mandrake or suse, which have very slick installers...and include a lot of handy applications etc

I would recomend mandrake for a newer machine

[TnT]

Vector Linux is small and light. Could work on the 486 decently well with Blackbox window manager. Although it is based off of Slackware, so it is not easy to configure.

[K6-III]

Go with a newer system and throw Ubuntu on it. You may not want to go back to Windows...

[DGhost]

mmm, i now have memories of running Windowmaker on Slackware on 486's. or getting X running on a 386SX-25 laptop w/ 3.5mb of RAM.

mmmmmm.