Re: What Linux distro to use for old Intel machine, that fits on CDs?
- From: raylopez99 <raylopez99@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2008 02:25:02 -0700 (PDT)
FINALLY! Somebody who sounds like they know what they're talking
about! Thanks Douglas Mayne. My comments inline below.
On Jun 28, 9:29 am, Douglas Mayne <d...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Jun 2008 01:24:31 -0700, raylopez99 wrote:
I have not been able to get a straight answer to this, despite almost
a year of trying.
Maybe three's the charm?
Here goes again...
I have an old machine, not my main machine, nearly in mothballs that<snip>
I recently bought a Dell Dimension 4100, built circa 2001. I got it from
the local university surplus property for $20. It came outfitted as
follows:
CPU: Pentium 3, 933 MHz
Memory: 512MB
Network: 3Com 10/100
Sound: Ensoniq
Optical: CD-RW (12x)
HD: none
I added a 500G SATA drive and controller, and now it has new life. It
can do all of the jobs you outlined without a hitch. I use it as secondary
workstation all of the time. Here are some screenshots running Dropline
Gnome on Slackware 12.0:
OK, I believe you.
My advice is to get a computer with similar specs if you intend to run
Open Office, Mozilla, etc. without running into a lot of frustration. As
an academic exercise, the absolute minimum that I would consider using as
desktop (in 2008) is
CPU: Pentium 3, 500MHz
Memory: 256M
Memory is critical. The more the better.
Got that. I did upgrade memory to at least 256 (I think in fact it's
512) and my CPU is faster than above.
BTW, I needed to add a disk to the system above because the university
removes all disks before reselling their systems. In your case, you
probably will need to add a disk, also. That is because of the fact that
2G is tight for installing any major GNU/Linux distribution.
YES! This is indeed the bottleneck. You are spot on.
Maybe, you
should consider throwing a few bucks at a SATA PCI disk controller ($25)
and 500G SATA HD ($100). That could be a good investment because if you
decide to upgrade to a totally new system later on you already have the
disk. On the other hand, a lot of vendors have prebuilt complete systems
for about $300- and they will definitely run circles around these
"junk" systems. You'll have to decide if it is worth it because at some
point, it becomes a case of throwing good money after bad.
YES! Again, spot on. I did buy on eBay a SATA PCI disk controller,
but, as bad luck would have it, the form factor was such that it would
not fit on my PCI slot. So I will have to rebuy it if I go down that
route again. But, though I have build many a system from scratch, I
rather not reorder a disk controller, wait a week, then disassemble
the case, play with the cards (it's very crowded on this small factor
mobo), etc etc. If--remember this fix is for a clueless noob who
literally checks email on Yahoo and prints a short letter once in a
blue moon--nothing fancy, and not even Java is required on the web
browser--if I can get away with just a software upgrade I would be
very happy, since that's less time wasted for me.
So, I ask again, which distro? Thanks in advance...
RL
.
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