Hello, all. I want to get my feet wet with Linux. just play with it as a desktop os. I wanted to go with Lindows, but their specs are too high for the pc I want to use. My box is P3, 500 mhz, 128 mb of ram. Any recommendations?
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Hello, all. I want to get my feet wet with Linux. just play with it as a desktop os. I wanted to go with Lindows, but their specs are too high for the pc I want to use. My box is P3, 500 mhz, 128 mb of ram. Any recommendations?
I ran Lindows on almost the exact same configuration......but it was a PIII 550.
It ran just fine.
that should be fine :)Quote:
Originally Posted by cgonzo
Thanks for both your replys. I was concerned because the Lindows home page says they recommend 800 mhz and 256 mb of Ram. I didnt want to get stuck with a sluggish pc by not following the minimum specs.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cgonzo
Depends on what you want to do with it but I would say that box should be fine, I'm running slackware 9.0 on a P2 400 w/ 128MB of RAM, I would love to have more RAM and disk space but it runs and is fast enough for what is does.
Just some pointers:
Swap space: Allocate at least 2x your physical memory.
Video card: Linux is a lot better than it used to be, but some video cards need a lot of work, may want to do a groups.google.com search of your video card and linux and see what pops up.
Desktop GUI: Don't want to start any flame wars here, so I'll just say pick either KDE or gnome - don't install both. Personally I like KDE.
Live CDs: May want to try out a linux live CD (put the CD in any PC, boot, and it loads the entire OS from CD) just to get a feel on how your system will like linux. I would try knoppix.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cgonzo
Oh yeah, I never worked with Lindows so not sure what choices you will have on install RE: swap space and GUI.
Just a caveat though - If you're wanting linux experience as a bullet on your resume you may want to look at one of the other distros once you get comfortable with Lindows - getting familiar with the command line, vi, lvm, etc will help with the big unixes even if some of the commands are different.
I agree with Doc and the rest. The config should be ok. You should also be able to locate the minimum specs for running Linux at the company websites that distribute them (RedHat, Mandrake, etc.).
The Distributions I recommend are:
Mandrake (easiest for those new to Linux)
Red Hat (most suited for corporations, not quite as easy to use as Mandrake).
Both above have a graphical desktop.
Good luck,
SalmonFisher
Thanks for the advice on the gui. I had heard about the swap file/ memory ratio, but it's good to be reminded. As for resume type of credentials under linux, I am a long way from there. I tried some of the command line linux a long time ago, but didn't stick with it.
Mainly I want to see the workstation side of linux and see if it may be an option for a typing lab with really old pcs. If the end user will adjust to it without much problem.