a lightweight, user friendly linux?

[Julia Ivvv]

Hello, I'm hoping someone can give me some advice here.

My brother has an older PC that he just uses for the internet and email, that's it. I believe it's a pentium 2 333 with 256mb ram, but I don't remember exactly. It's old anyway, but it works. Currently he has windows 2000 installed on it, but it's having some annoying problems that probably aren't worth the time to troubleshoot. Since I don't have a win2k install disc, I thought maybe linux would be a good option.

Now, my brother isn't a computer expert by any means, but he knows what he's doing and doesn't have much trouble learning new things. Is there a linux distro suitable for this purpose? Something light on resources and straightforward to use, and a web browser that's actually going to run on that system (which may be faster than I stated, I don't recall).

Thanks!

 

[Dippyskoodlez]

Hello, I'm hoping someone can give me some advice here.

My brother has an older PC that he just uses for the internet and email, that's it. I believe it's a pentium 2 333 with 256mb ram, but I don't remember exactly. It's old anyway, but it works. Currently he has windows 2000 installed on it, but it's having some annoying problems that probably aren't worth the time to troubleshoot. Since I don't have a win2k install disc, I thought maybe linux would be a good option.

Now, my brother isn't a computer expert by any means, but he knows what he's doing and doesn't have much trouble learning new things. Is there a linux distro suitable for this purpose? Something light on resources and straightforward to use, and a web browser that's actually going to run on that system (which may be faster than I stated, I don't recall).

Thanks!

Ubuntu is the best example of a user friendly linux distro.

But its not the lightest on system resources.

I'd say give it a try with a live CD, and if its too taxing, you could search for a "lite" distro.

 

[gamer210]

I would suggest Zenwalk. I have it installed on my old Thinkpad w/ similar specs. The installation is kind of tricky but the Zenwalk site gives you a nice installation guide. Here's the link.

http://www.zenwalk.org/

 

[Ripper3]

If you like Ubuntu, then you'll love Xubuntu, lighter on resources, and still works much the same way. I believe there's also another light Ubuntu derivative, but I can't remember the name at the moment. Uses fluxbox afaik.

DSL (Damn Small Linux) is very popular, and fits on just 50MB worth of CD space
Puppy Linux is popular, and also small, and light on resources. Its popularity means it's stemmed a few seperate versions (like Pizza Pup, heavier version, but more applications)
Those are the two lightweight ones I'd recommend trying initially, but you might want to read these:
http://www.tuxmachines.org/node/16510
And:
http://distrogue.blogspot.com/2007/05/linux-lite-small-distros-for-old.html

Both interesting reads, and might help you decide.
Mostly, the lighter versions of linux are also the most user-friendly versions, as they're made for people moving from Windows 98 on an old machine to something that's community driven and supported

 

[Fox34]

seriously small, Get DSL. Damn small linux, its a live boot from a disk or even A flash drive. Then you can install it while booted live

 

[jonmcc33]

... it's a pentium 2 333 with 256mb ram

Toss it in the trash.

 

[Wile E]

seriously small, Get DSL. Damn small linux, its a live boot from a disk or even A flash drive. Then you can install it while booted live

lol. Thread is a year old.

Toss it in the trash.

The OP asked for a linux distro to run on the machine, not for your opinion on what to do with it.

 

[Polaris573]

Toss it in the trash.

If you do not have anything useful to add do not post.

 

[jonmcc33]

The OP asked for a linux distro to run on the machine, not for your opinion on what to do with it.

With a system that low end that cannot do much, even web browsing would be questionable, what can he do with it?

 

[Polaris573]

I had a pentium II based machine at my parent's house that was used for web browsing until just a few months ago. It was fast enough to stream youtube videos and run most web pages although they were, of course, noticeably slower than a more modern machine. Your "advice" is ill-informed and adds nothing worthwhile to the conversation. So once again, if you do not have anything worthwhile to add to a conversation please refrain from posting, especially if you want to make a moderately inflammatory post. If you would like to continue this discussion you may PM me. Do not make any more off topic posts in this thread.

 

[PartyLikeARockStar]

I have seen DSL work wonders. If you're looking for a little more eye candy, go with something using Enlightenment, or Fluxbox with adesklets/gdesklets. Xubuntu is also a fine choice. Lots of distros can be made to be light weight. I would tell you if you can master Fluxbox, that it would leave more of the limited resources on that machine available. Good luck with your Linux adventure!

 

[DIBL]

I installed Slax on a 1GB SD card, and made it bootable, for my Eee PC. Included OOO word processing and spreadsheet and whatever Mozilla browser they offer. I don't know that you'll get much "lighter" than that.

http://www.slax.org/