Switching From Xp To Linux

[StealthG]

I just got an old computer that was made in 1990, since it does me no good i think it would be a great idea to make this computer run on linux. So what would be the easiet distro that you guys recommend to get me started in linux? I currently have xp home edition installed on it, but since i dont have any spare CD keys it will expire in about 20 days. so i would prefer the linux distro to be free. and i dont know whether this is a factor or not, but the computer specs. are: celeron 500MHZ, 64MB of memory, 10GB harddrive, and a rage XL video card.

[naraku9333]

The distro you choose isn't really a concern, the desktop environment is. With only 64MiB of ram GNOME and KDE will run pretty slow, I would suggest using xfce4 which would run better or fluxbox which would probably run best but lacks much of the eye candy of the others. My advice is install Ubuntu (one of the more user friendly distros and install fluxbox to run on it.

[hitest]

I agree, Ubuntu would be a good choice. The system specs are good, a P 500 will run Linux just fine, I'm running Debian 3.1 on a Plll 500 with 192 MB RAM. I share the same concern; 64 MB of RAM will be deathly slow to run x windows. Flux, Blackbox, xfce will run the unit, it'll use a fair amount of swap.

I've got slackware 10.2 running on a Pll 266 with 128 MB RAM, using xfce and it runs okay, doesn't go into swap that much.

Another distro you may consider is Vector linux 5.1; it is based on slackware and is designed to run on older hardware. You can download it here: Vector Linux 5.1

Here's a screenshot of Vector Linux 5.1 running xfce on my Pll 266, I took Vector for a short test drive yesterday. It has a text based installer like Ubuntu. The only tricky part is setting up partitions. Vector uses cfdisk to create partitions, just create two partitions, swap and root. Set Swap at 512 MB and toggle it to be bootable, use the rest of your hard drive space for root.

Edited September 25, 2005 by hitest

[Honda_Boy]

i've heard ubuntu is a good one for beginners. i use Fedora Core 4. I'm actually still new to linux and i actually learned and am still learning on FC4. Both my PIII systems run it fine one's the cow box in my sig and the other when I actually did run it was an eMachine eMonster 600 with a 600MHz slot1 Pentium III and a 100MHz FSB, 384MB PC133 RAM, 32MB GeForce2 MX200, SB Live! and first on a 3GB hard drive then a 20GB, a 40X CD-ROM, and an 8X DVD-ROM.

some of the memory, the sound card, both 20GB hard drives, and CD drives that i used in thing went back into the gateway once i got it running again.

FC4 uses a graphical installer and is very easy to make partitions. i chose to make mine manually in fear that the auto partion would mess up my primary hard drive. It installs a lot like Windows and looks like Gnome while installing it.