[Skuzzle]

I've been using fedora core 5 and love it. (gone from ubuntu - mandriva)

Fedora core just works for me.

What i want is a distro that looks as nice.. kde (pref) maybe gnome that will be just as fast as my fedora install (on an athlon xp 1400) but on a p2 300mhz with 128mb of ram.

Also i have just a 6gb hd so not a lot of room.

All i want it for is web, im, email and possibly mp3/dvd, maybe word processing... simple stuff.

No gaming, no servers.. unless i can get mysql and php to run on it for web development (though thats pushing it).

Recommend me.. i was tempted to go the ubuntu root again, but dont know if it will run can you make kde work on a dsl-n build ?? or is that gunna be a task and half

[Skuzzle]

oh also i have a pcmcia ethernet adaptor that i'd like to work

[evelmunkey]

I dont think it is possbile to run what you want on that a machine that slow.

[Tyler1989]

oh I think it is but it's pushing it today. Try **** Small Linux aka DSL Linux.

[macdude425]

I severly doubt that KDE will run on that thing without you taking a SEVERE performance cut.

I suggest you look into:
Featherlinux
Vector Linux
DSL
Puppy Linux

http://distrowatch.com

[horndude]

dvd isnt gonna happen, you could play back stuff hosted on a network barely though, doubt it has the horsepower to playback video from a drive and decode it too

you wont want KDE or GNOME, try fluxbox or blackbox instead

I dont understand why people keep recommending specific distros, any of them will work, the secret is using the right GUI and being picky about what apps you try to run. Yes it is alot of work to change GUI's on many of the precompiled minimal distros like FC5 or ubuntu or kubuntu or SUSE, but it can be done. Better yet, why not select a distro that has all of them and just pick and choose what you want to install?

check you hardware for compatibility before you make the leap PLEASE, I cannot stress enough, you will see posts on here all the time cause someone jumped before looking at where they were jumping

http://www.tuxmobil.org

click on laptops

[jakec]

Yeah,

I Agree with Macdude on this one you are going to struggle running KDE on that.

just thought I'd give you links to the above Suggestions

feather Linux
http://featherlinux.berlios.de/

Vector Linux
http://www.vectorlinux.com/

DSL
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Puppy Linux
http://www.puppylinux.org/user/viewpage.php?page_id=3

if you wanna check out some others:

http://www.linuxlinks.com/Distributi...Distributions/

Hope this Helps,

Jake

[macdude425]

Originally posted by horndude
I dont understand why people keep recommending specific distros, any of them will work, the secret is using the right GUI and being picky about what apps you try to run. Yes it is alot of work to change GUI's on many of the precompiled minimal distros like FC5 or ubuntu or kubuntu or SUSE, but it can be done. Better yet, why not select a distro that has all of them and just pick and choose what you want to install?

Because these distros are DESIGNED to be run on older machines or more limited machines. Sure, I can get FC5 or Debian, and change the GUI, and that'd do the job, but Debian isn't designed for lightness, nor is FC5, so you'd be spending a lot of time deselecting packages during install (especially for FC5), and then, if you missed anything, you'd have to go back and remove it by hand.

It's just easier to let someone else do it for you.

[horndude]

Either way your ending up adding stuff to a distro like FC5 or just not installing some things in the case of slackware.........you have to do some work no matter which way you go here.

In terms of "lightness", only shortcut there is choosing an older distro with a smaller kernel or recompiling a modern one for the specific machine in question, other than that its merely a choice of what apps to run.

I think what im getting at here is the typical stereo types with certain terms that really have no truth in the real world, linux is full of this crap. No need to keep on propagating myths.

[Skuzzle]

would ubuntu run on it ? - I've used before and liked it.. only moved to fedora for kde and as a trial. I'd be happy with gnome on the lappy if ubuntu will work ok
also have you heard of alinux ? They state 486 with 64mb ram as min spec But it looks quite graphical