Light Linux?

I have a friend of mine that need compuer for internet surfing, email, play music and other beginers needs.
I have 600Mhz Pentium with 256SDRAM and 20gb hard disk machine for him.


Is there any Linux distro that would run fast on this machine? I want to install it on HD (not LiveDD) because he will store his emails and pictures in this machine......

?

 

You could try Ubuntu, one of the systems i use it on is a P3 with 512 Mb RAM/1 GHz.
No trouble with it, enough speed.

Lamehand

 

if u rele want a light distro, consider Damn Small Linux (DSL) or Puppy Linux.

 

Hello,
Xubuntu. Anything with Xfce will run light, Gnome next, KDE being the heaviest.
Mrk

 

I agree with the suggestion of DSL and Puppy by WSFuser. Slackware and derivative Vector may also be suitable.

 

I am not sure that Puppy or DSL can be installed on hard disk, its just LiveCD

 

What your friend really needs to seek is a distro that with not start up a bunch on uneccesary garbage and will not install it (cough cough ubuntu cough cough suse cough cough) In that regard, slackware and arch linux would probably the best options for his pc. They both come with a bare minimum of software, and then allow you to install what you want. Arch linux probably has the upper hand for those newer to linux though since it has a package manager so you won't dive into dependecy hell.

In regards to XFCE, Gnome, KDE, these are pretty heavy desktop environmenets for that PC. You should really consider using only a windows manager such as fluxbox, blackbox, openbox, or even ratpoison for minimal memory usage (in terms of ease of learning from easiest to hardest, and in terms of memory usage from highest to lowest).

Cheers,

Alphalutra1

 

gnome and kde are gona be hard on that pc.so no not ubuntu or kubuntu. iv tested it on a 1gh pc with same ram as yours explorer was actualy faster (its like runing a fresh windows install without vid drivers, that same slugish feeling, terrible )

damn small linux is a good one.

heres a list you can try if you want. you can sort by name, by size, etc

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

edit

posted the same time as Alphalutra1... heh, never again thse big distros with big heavy stuf ona slow pc. and u thought windowz was slow. lol onemore thing has he tried nix before or just starting? thats gona make a difrence too. good luck.

 

Yes they can ... here's the wiki article for Puppy to start with.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/HardDiskInstall

 

Xubuntu, which uses Xfce Desktop environment.

http://www.xubuntu.org/

 

AUSTRUMI is good too, most of the programs it has are very good, i like them anyway. there's an option in the menu to install it to the hard drive, but some people have problems with the installer it's only 50MB so it's worth trying out. it's a livecd. the livecd loads totally into memory like Puppy Linux.
http://cyti.latgola.lv/ruuni/index_en.html

here are some screenshots of AUSTRUMI http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/slideshow.php?release=645&slide=2&title=austrumi 1.2.0 screenshots

but, for a beginner i think these small distros - AUSTRUMI and Puppy are too difficult, Fluxbuntu might be worth trying out, you could probably get lots of support from the ubuntu people too.
http://fluxbuntu.org/?q=node/1

here are the screenshots, i think it looks great, i think it uses the nubuntu theme
http://shots.osdir.com/slideshows/s...e=3&title=fluxbuntu nbuild1 alpha screenshots

maybe xubuntu, but i think Fluxbuntu is lighter.

 

Simply MEPIS (www.mepis.org). It uses the Ubuntu core.

It has a "live" CD or DVD edition so you can try it out first.

 

SAM Linux based off PCLinuxOS is perfect for older PC's.

 

Hey guys just found this article for Linux users and Ebay..... LINK.

It look like that currently Linux users can not post items for sale...