Need basic version of Linux

**Lixus Looser** · 01-09-2005, 05:03 AM

Hey Y'all:

I need some advice: I am hooking up a friends ANCIENT computer to my DSL and I want some advice on a really basic, bare bones but user friendly version of Linux. The computer has a 812 mb hard drive, Pentium, 24 mb of RAM. It is currently running Win 95, but I would like to put Linux on it. Any suggestions for a bare bones version that would allow them to surf the web, write letters to Grandma and print?

Oh yeah, one more thing... I can't boot from the CD ROM. Have to have a floppy I guess. Can't even use Knoppix in this machine.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Sincerely,

JA

01-09-2005, 05:19 AM

You don't really need a CD-ROM drive, provided you have ethernet adapter attached to that computer. You can do net install of just about any of the major distros. You'd probably wanna go with something like Debian, or Slackware though. I think you can fit X+Fluxbox under 800 Megs plus maybe a small browser (http://www.dillo.org/) and apsfilter (http://www.apsfilter.org/) for printing. That'd leave very little room left over for other stuff. I'd suggest just running a live distro, getting a bigger HDD, and/or getting more RAM. You can probably come up with enough money to get secondhand parts at a pawnshop.

**pbharris** · 01-09-2005, 05:30 AM

humms - i guess i would go with an old version of slack or redhat - say circa 1997 - i think redhat 5.0 or 5.2 may be good.

if you want to stay more modern the definatley slack.

**gmoreno** · 01-09-2005, 06:02 AM

You might want to look into:

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

**Compunuts** · 01-09-2005, 07:35 AM

One word:

Debian

The only distro which you can install the base into the HDD from a set of floppies and then you can do apt-get install what you want later on.

Note: Oh BTW, sorry for the short reply. I typed a nice long version of reply but my XP on my laptop BSOD on me while I was half typing this and half watching TV. This notebook had a nice SuSE 9 on but wireless won't work. I probably need SuSE pro 9.2 or something. hmmm ....