which version of linux?

[willaby]

I just acquired a "new" computer (my girlfriend's dad gave it to me - he's a techie) and I would like to install and learn linux on it. I'm wondering which version you guys would recommend?

The specs (as best as I can tell) are as following:

P 233 Mhz
80 Megs of RAM (much more than I expected)
2 gig hard drive :-D
16x cd rom
? Motherboard (think it's intel)
? ISA modem (lol) (screw it, I think I'll just remove it)
? PCI graphics, ? VRAM and I think it's "expertcolor" or something like that

Sorry 'bout the sketchy specs, but I think those should be workable, eh?

[iseeu_3]

go to linuxiso.org and checkout all the "flavors" and see which one strikes you. since you havne't messed with linux before, you might try mandrake of course, that's a mighty small hdd, i don't know if the new 9.2 will fit on it. others will reply.

<shad>

[jkrohn]

Mandrake will fit on it for a desktop install eaisly. The only problem will be that the GUI is going to be slooooooooow on that system unnless you use a lightweight window manager.

Unfortunately the lightweight managers are not nearly as user friendly for someone who has not used linux before

Jkrohn

[willaby]

It couldn't be slower than winXP on my pII 400 Mhz laptop, could it?

[vass0922]

IF you have a good connection, you could download knoppix just to give it a shot.
It will be a bit slower than normal, so if you can stand that you're good to go


-- Note --
The reason its slower, is because Knoppix runs 100% from the cdrom, it does not install anything

[willaby]

Ooh, I don't know if I would like that, especially with a 16x cdrom, lol

[nukes]

I'd stick Mandrake on it. Do a custom install and only install the stuff you need. Don't bother with stuff like KDE etc. Just install IceWM, Fluxbox/blackbox and Enlightenment. They will give you something to play with.
Don't install the servers, don't do a default install. If you leave something out, you can easily add it in later, and Mandrake has a nice set of system config tools as well, which will be inserted in all your menus for any WM. I'm assuming you're a new Linux user. If in fact you know your way around and are comfortable editing stuff by hand, then you may prefer something like Debian or Slackware for this machine, just to run a bit faster.

[ArcticFox]

I'm running Red Hat on drive 2 right now, and it works pretty well considering I was unable to install neither Mandrake or SuSE. The install I did was 1,999MB, aka your whole drive. But I installed some servers, all the games, documentations, etc..., so I'm sure you could fit it on your tiny drive. Don't install any games, their not worth it for a system that slow. But I would give Mandrake a try, it's easy to use and the only people I've met that didn't like it were stuck up and considered it a n00bs OS. hahaha, yeah right.

[willaby]

Hmmm...

Red Hat, Mandrake....Red Hat, Mandrake...

Hmmm...

FreeBSD, OpenBSD....FreeBSD, OpenBSD...