Best Linux for an old machine?

[David James]

I won't have a problem with GUI.

No, but your hardware might if you use KDE or Gnome with Mozilla

I've heard people saying good things about Debian and Slackware. How do they compare with RH and SuSe?

If you plan on installing Debian, it's advisable to read the online documentation first before hand and to gather info about your system (IRQs, IOs, etc). Work is being done on improving the Debian installer, but it's still rather formidable (I think there's an O'Reilly book on Debian as well). But if you survive, Debian is a real treat since you'll never have to reinstall from scratch again to perform upgrades.

Debian's main claim to fame is apt-get, which is a system for easily finding, downloading, installing and configuring software (Mozilla Firebird is now in the Debian repositories). Because of this, Debian avoids the "rpm-hell" of having to scour the internet for rpm dependencies. Apt-get makes system maintenance easy, a fact that contributes to its increasing popularity as a server install.

[MoNkaholic]

Debian's main claim to fame is apt-get, which is a system for easily finding, downloading, installing and configuring software (Mozilla Firebird is now in the Debian repositories). Because of this, Debian avoids the "rpm-hell" of having to scour the internet for rpm dependencies. Apt-get makes system maintenance easy, a fact that contributes to its increasing popularity as a server install.

Hrmmm... I've seen apt-get <a href="http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/">ported</a> over to RedHat, so I guess my question is are there any differences between the apt-get that comes with Debian and that of the port? If not, are there any <em>other</em> significant reasons for using Debian?

I only ask because more often than not, whenever someone recommends Debian it's because of Apt-get.

[hartlandcat]

I'd stay clear of SuSE.

Care to elaborate? I've quite happily used the 8.x series for quite a while now (currently 8.2).

I love (and use) SuSE. However, it's probably the biggest resource hog of the lot.

[johann_p]

I'd stay clear of SuSE.

Care to elaborate? I've quite happily used the 8.x series for quite a while now (currently 8.2).

I love (and use) SuSE. However, it's probably the biggest resource hog of the lot.

I don't see this. The main advantage of SuSe is ease of installation: IMO it has best driver and hardware support and makes it extremely easy even for novices to get Linux up and running. If you decide to NOT go for the one-click setup method you can completely decide what you want to have installed on your system - from a console-only basic configuration (e.g. for NAT routing and print server) to a fullblown KDE/Office or development install.

[hartlandcat]

Yes, SuSE is excellent, and is in my opinion the best of the lot. But... it requires more space and RAM than other distros.

[Hendikins]

Yes, SuSE is excellent, and is in my opinion the best of the lot. But... it requires more space and RAM than other distros.

Not if set up correctly.

[y3k]

I'm retiring my 6-year-old 266MHz P2 from Windows work. It has 192MB SDRAM and 20GB in 2 HD's. The video card is a Matrox Millenium II with its own VRAM, and the sound card is by Creative. The machine is not shabby, but it can no longer run the 1-2 year old games my daughter is buying on the discount racks. So it's going to get a low-level reformat and a new OS. Time to try Linux, I think. But which distro?

Based on a pm exchange with another user here, I've decided not to try Mandrake. But this leaves Red Hat, SuSe, and a bunch of smaller distros. So, which one for an old, slow machine? I am aware that there might be issues with Linux drivers for old hardware, which is why my question is fairly specific for the older machine.

Any thoughts?

stick QNX on it, it will fly, you wont belive how fast your "old" computer is going

[David James]

Hrmmm... I've seen apt-get <a href="http://dag.wieers.com/home-made/apt/">ported</a> over to RedHat, so I guess my question is are there any differences between the apt-get that comes with Debian and that of the port? If not, are there any <em>other</em> significant reasons for using Debian?

I only ask because more often than not, whenever someone recommends Debian it's because of Apt-get.

I'm not sure if there is a difference, but apt-get is just the client end of entire system of servers. So unless there is a corresponding network of servers, it won't be the same.

As for other reasons, Debian tends to have a more rigorous testing process than just about anything else out there. There are slightly different ways of configuring things, and Debian puts stuff where it belongs (/usr/local is for third-party, user-installed software - not for packaged software dammit!).

In truth though, the various Linux distributions all seem to be converging to a degree as each picks up the best features of the others. There are even plans for a <a href="http://www.linuxbase.org/spec/packaging/lcd/faq/lcd-other.html">merged package format</a> at some point in the future - a way of reconciling the commoness of rpm and the functionality of dpkg/apt-get.

One way of looking at it is the following: so long as Linux is a going concern, so will Debian. In fact, there are projects to run Debian on other *NIX/BSD kernels, as well as the forthcoming Hurd OS. Debian also runs on a multitude of hardware and platforms (Intel, Macs/PowerPCs, Sparcs, Intel 64s, etc). So basically, Debian is probably going to be around forever - kind of like Mozilla

[old Neil Parks]

stick QNX on it, it will fly, you wont belive how fast your "old" computer is going

An OS is only as good as the apps it can run. What apps run under QNX?

[Hendikins]

stick QNX on it, it will fly, you wont belive how fast your "old" computer is going

An OS is only as good as the apps it can run. What apps run under QNX?

Not all that many, even with a truckload of compatibility libs.

[willll]

stick QNX on it, it will fly, you wont belive how fast your "old" computer is going :)

An OS is only as good as the apps it can run. What apps run under QNX?

Not all that many, even with a truckload of compatibility libs.

Mozilla runs under QNX (<a href="http://www.openqnx.com/Article155.html">download 1.4 here</a>) and that's all that matters. Well... not really.

[y3k]

seems the latest version needs 400 MHz Pentium or better, 128M RAM , 1.0 G disk space, oh well you could get an older version but im not sure were from. tucows has a qnx section http://qnx.tucows.com/ its probably not the best for a lorngterm use as there isnt a huge amount of software for it but you have to try it at least once, maybe all computers will be this fast in 10 years http://get.qnx.de/ iv got the version from a few years ago that fit on a floppy. I stuck it in my mates 60mhz pentium with 16mb and was totally blown away

heres the floppy version ftp://65.121.164.140:21/ftp/misc/qnxdemo.zip 1.4mb

[malliz]

I used Red Hat 7.0 and 7.2 on an old P166 with 48 meg edo ram and an ATI Rage Pro 2meg video card and it ran fine. Its not much use using some of the latest releases (IMHO)as they won't run that well without a Lot of tweeking. I think iso's of 7.2 are still around if not pm me

[Ashitaka]

Both Debian and Vector Linux have performed well on my 333MHz.

Use a lightweight window manager like FVWM, XFCE3 or IceWM and your speed problems will leave quietly.

[daihard]

There's a distro called Vine Linux. It's based on Red Hat, but is a lot more mean-and-lean. The English site is a bit behind in terms of the current version. It's now 2.6r1. Version 3.0, due in this fall, will be based on RH 8 but without any of the RH-specific customizations in place. Gnome and WindowMaker come standard with it; the "extras" CD contains KDE and other apps.

Vine 3.0 is one of the distros I'm considering swtiching to. The other choices are RH X, Turbolinux and FreeBSD 5.1.