Which flavor of linux?

[Roswell_NX]

i have FreeBSD on my eMachines, and i wanted to put linux on my other two boxes. I need you guys' advice on what would work best. User-friendliness is NOT the top priority. The boxes are 333Mhz Gateway, and a 500Mhz HP. Both have 128Mb RAM.

i don't have much experience with linux, so i'm ready for any bugs, crashes or other problems that i might come across:rolleyes:

Roswell :)

[Siliconjunkie]

If you are already running BSD, Linux will not be much of a stretch. I like RedHat, but others hate it. For the most part, all the distros are the same. If you really want to torture yourself, go with Debian or Slackware.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

I use Suse, I find it to be a very nice well rounded distro.

[mickwish]

Another vote for SUSE here. I got the majority of my cows on SUSE now (the ones the rest of the family don't make me run winders on :rolleyes: ).

I find SUSE very easy to install and admin. I especially like the online installers and updates - very nice! :D

Cheers
Mick

[Plum Ugly]

RED HAT !!!!!! OR MANDRAKE

[Roswell_NX]

i don't remember which, but i heard that Mandrake or Redhat kill CD drives, and i think i have at least one that's on the list...:(

Roswell

[Siliconjunkie]

Ah, what you heard is BS. There is not a distro out there that kills CD drives.

[Roswell_NX]

i guess they fixed it by now...

they said something like, that by accident the CD drive driver that comes with thad distro overwrites the firmware of the drive...

Roswell

[mickwish]

It's true SJ - read about it here (http://www.geek.com/news/geeknews/2003Oct/gee20031029022431.htm). Only el-cheapo CD-ROM drives, but stilll... :eek:

Cheers
Mick

[Siliconjunkie]

Interesting. I stand corrected. Never woulda guessed.

[njolakoski]

MDK 10.1 or SUSE

[Roswell_NX]

i've decided on SuSE for my 500Mhz box :)

i'm still thinking about the other though...

Roswell:)

[ThRoNkA]

I would use Red Hat on my laptop but I am skiddish as to wireless card support as I have never tried it.

[Siliconjunkie]

Wireless support is actually pretty good. Is it a built in card? Give it a Google and see if anyone has tried.

[gino x]

I started out with Debian [testing] for my old box.

I also like Fedora too :)

[Xeroid]

I like SuSE. I use SuSE on my AMD XP 1600 256mb and 2400 512mb. On older boxes I like to use Vector. I'm running Vector 4.3 on my PIII 550 96mb machine and it flies. Vector only uses lightweight window managers like XFCE and Fluxbox.

Just be advised that Germ and another member from the LUG had a devil of a time configuring a dialup connection on Vector. If you are on broadband using a router (like me) then you're golden. :)

Vector is based on Slackware but has an improved installer. It's a small download (333mb) and the system requirements are:

VL 4.3 Hardware Requirements

The minimum hardware requirements to run VectorLinux 4.3 are a 166 MHz Pentium class processor with 32 MB of RAM memory, and just 850 MB of hard disc space (*).

To have a more comfortable experience with VectorLinux 4.3 we would recommend a 233 MHz (MMX) processor with 64 MB of memory as a minimum.

(*) 835 MB of space for the installation plus 64 MB of swap space is the very minimum.
Extra space would be required for additional applications and / or your personal files.


You could go with Vector or you could go with another distro (like SuSE) and use fluxbox, xfce, blackbox, openbox, etc. Just stay away from Gnome or KDE because the performance would be disappointing on an older box.

OOPS! a link would be nice? :lol:
http://www.vectorlinux.com/index.php?menu=1

Here is a screenshot I posted of Vector 4.3 a while back:

http://www.xtremepccentral.com/gallery//showphoto.php/photo/1380/password//sort/1/cat/500/page/1

[madfish]

P III 933 Slot 1-256mb ram - SuSE 9.1 personal

Celeron II 800 - 258mb ram - SuSe 9.1 pesonal

K6/2-500 Super 7 - 128mb ram - Red Hat 9

Celeron 700 Frankenstien {Expermential} beast 128mb Ram - Win'98

[Roswell_NX]

downloading SuSE 9.1 :)

Roswell

[Roswell_NX]

w00t :) 50 % done!

Roswell :)

[Roswell_NX]

done, gonna burn the CD...

Roswell:)

[Roswell_NX]

done that :)

Roswell

[Siliconjunkie]

And the verdict is?

[Siliconjunkie]

Actually, this brings something to mind.

Anymore, I just burn the first CD and install via FTP.

You have to extract all the ISOs and setup a quickie FTP server, but it sure is nice. Also makes it real easy if you want to add more packages.

[Roswell_NX]

I'm gonna install SuSE on my HP Vectra, and Slackware on my Gateway which i'm gonna go work on right now...

Roswell :)