n00b-friendly distro with KDE for Pentium133??

**Embedded** · 05-26-2003, 03:01 AM

Hi, everybody!

I have an old PC with Pentium 133MHz, 32 MB RAM, 2GB hard drive, and it is running windoze 95. The system is extremely slow and unstable, so I decided to install Linux on this ancient box.
I suppose the distro will have to be very slim and fast on old hardware, but at the same time it should have apps for internet(browsing, chat, mail) and some office work.
I'm not a Linux guru, so I'd like a distro that is easy to set up(like mandrake od redhat, but without the bloat).

Also, dowload size is an issue, since I will use an ISDN 64 kbps line.
I can't make up my mind from the tiny exotic distros I saw on distrowatch (arch, vector, bonzai,....).
What do you think?

Alek

**Kernel_Killer** · 05-26-2003, 09:33 AM

you might want to go with Mandrake (Or SuSE if you plan on spending $$$). Redhat is an excellent distro, but they optimized the distro for 1GHz+ systems. On the subject of KDE, I wouldn't advise it on a P133 unless it was at least KDE 2.x. Running KDE3 on a machine less then 600MHz can be very sluggish. As for the connection, you can always opt for a network install of some sort. Some distros have very small installers for this very reason, but non of them (As far as I know) include the easy to use distros. Just download the 1st ISO, and do a network install from there.

**cga** · 05-26-2003, 01:18 PM

I'd also recommend avoiding KDE on that box. You could use xfce for a nice, lightweight desktop or IceWM for a basic, easy-to-use wm with a nice taskbar.

Just about any mainstream distro like Mandrake will have a "minimal install" option for lightweight systems.

**stryder144** · 05-26-2003, 02:50 PM

I, personally, would go the route of installing Debian (especially since you have limited hard drive space) and then placing WindowMaker or xfce on it (or anything else that you can find on xwinman that strikes your fancy). Debian will only install the minimal amount of software and the required dependencies for you if you use the trusty apt-get feature.

Since some people have problems installing Debian, check out this article and it will help you out immensely.

Cheers

**Embedded** · 05-26-2003, 03:02 PM

Thanks.

I've downloaded mini-woody (Bonzai). Its only 180 MB and its Debian based. It has an improved install procedure from Debian and it has X.
It sounds really nice and I might give it a spin.
Does anyone have any experience with it?