which Linux distro would run on a 486 or a pentium 200 (even with MMX)

[Jing Su]

> Date: Sun, 21 Nov 2004 20:50:33 -0500
> From: Simon Tonekham <simon_128-PkbjNfxxIARBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org>
>
> I was just wondering, which linux distro would run on a 486 with 4 to 8MB
> of RAM with 1GB hard drive or maybe a Pentium 200 (even with MMX
> technology) with 16MB of RAM and 2GB hard drive. The reason that I'm
> asking this is that I want to know if older machines could run Linux
> depending on the distro and can be capable of surfing the internet and
> doing work processing tasks. In my opinion, If I want something
> substancal for example playing music files, I have to get a bigger system
> like a pentium 2, 3 or 4. Currently, I have a P4 Computer with 256MB of
> RDRAM, 30GB Hard Drive (planning to upgrade to 80 or 120GB hard drive by
> the end of the year) and my computer is currently running Windows XP
> Professional with SP2 ('i'm going to dual boot with Fedora Core 3 by the
> end of next year, just to try out with Linux.
>
> What is your suggestion?

I personally recommend SLACKWARE.

I have Slack 10 running an a Pentium 120 MHz notebook computer, with 1GB
hard-drive and 16 megs of RAM.  I can cram in a featureful Slack distro
and still have about 200 MB of space left for my home directory.  That
includes an installation of MySQL and Apache.

I'd have to say that pretty much everything runs smoothly with the
exception of Mozilla/Firefox.  Actually, even Netcape 4.7 runs really slow
on it.  I wouldn't recommend going back to an even older browser, since
anything older likely won't support features that you're normally used to.

So, I use a version of 'links' that has graphics support.  Most of the
time I just browse in text mode, but once in a while I run across a site
that's impossible to navigate without graphics.

I also do most of my work on the console, so a single XTERM window running
SCREEN is more than sufficient for me.

Based on the dog slow speed at which Mozilla/Firefox runs on my notebook,
I'd say that OpenOffice is probably out of the question.  I haven't tried
Abiword or Gnumeric on it yet, so those might be worthwhile to try.  The
biggest problem appears to be RAM.  Modern programs just aren't designed
to cram inside 16 MBs of RAM; the swapping is what kills performance.

You could also consider using the older computer as a dummy terminal.  It
just has to provide a screen and keyboard, and make a more powerful
desktop run a server to do the work.

-Jing

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