Putting linux on an older computer

[superman22x]

I think I am going to put linux on an old machine I have. It's not that powerful, in its day I think it was, but not anymore. It has 256mb of RAM, PC100? idk, and a voodoo 3 AGP card, and some old athlon 64 processor. Its a compaq 54** I think, its in the basement, not going to look at it right now. But anyway, it has a 20GB harddrive, and I was going to install linux on it, which version of linux should I use? This computer originally had windows 98 on it. I am going to give it too my friend for basically, going online, playng music, and using his ipod.
Would ubuntu not run good? Maybe the Damn Small Linux, lol.

 

[MikeReiner]

I think I am going to put linux on an old machine I have. It's not that powerful, in its day I think it was, but not anymore. It has 256mb of RAM, PC100? idk, and a voodoo 3 AGP card, and some old athlon 64 processor. Its a compaq 54** I think, its in the basement, not going to look at it right now. But anyway, it has a 20GB harddrive, and I was going to install linux on it, which version of linux should I use? This computer originally had windows 98 on it. I am going to give it too my friend for basically, going online, playng music, and using his ipod.
Would ubuntu not run good? Maybe the Damn Small Linux, lol.

xUbunutu would work fine on that hardware.
However, that iPod isn't going to work so well. They typically REQUIRE iTunes, of which, there is no linux version.

 

[cavemangrinder]

I installed linux on my machine which is similiar to yours. Ubuntu would be a good chioce. 20 gb should be enough, that is if your friend does not have a massive music collection. Ubuntu linux takes up about 3 gigs or so, more than windows 98. Anyway, I installed it on a 10gb hdd and it worked fine, only used for surfing the internet and listening to cds.

 

[superman22x]

Yeah, I think I'll go with ubuntu. Start the download now, had it going, and than someone pulled teh internet....

 

[MikeReiner]

xUbuntu is the best choice for that hardware if you ask me. It uses XFCE, a light weight user interface geared towards machines with less ram.

 

[lhuser]

Yep, Xubuntu or Mandrake 10.1 or Suse 8.1. I preffer older OSes for legacy PCs or newer, lightweight OSes, such as xUbuntu or DSL.

 

[LiveWire]

If you can get Amarok onto your Ubuntu install, it will sync with your iPod just fine.

 

[superman22x]

I had DSL, I love that name, lol, but its not booting correctly, it starts loading and than like stops. Doesnt do anything.