[daniel34]

I need to find a distro that runs on a low speck computer when I say low I mean low it is for a friend there computer is still on windows 98 and he is after getting the internet in but wont upgrade the dam computer

The CPU clock speed is 800mhz
The Ram in the machine is 256 mb
Hard disc drive is 16gb
DVD rom drive that I put in there a while ago before that it had cd rom

[johnnybgoode83]

Ubuntu derivative Lubuntu is a good bet for low end machines as it features the lightweight LXDE.

http://lubuntu.net/

[Oscar_]

The ideal distro for this is Puppy Linux (Version "Wary")

Download the .iso and burn it to a disc image and you can boot the live CD and try it.

http://puppylinux.com

Really friendly and helpful support community on the forum too.

[daniel34]

I will have a look at both in a virtual box on my machine then let the person who is going to be using it see both before install to his machine

[max99]

Doubling the RAM for a few quid on eBay will help. But there's only so many hoops you can jump through in order to help friends who won't help themselves. He could pick up a far higher spec refurb for around £50 - £65 delivered. You might even find something better on Freecycle.

[TheSword]

OP, just tell him he can't unless he buys a new laptop with wifi, gee's you can get some real nifty netbooks for a great price, it's just not worth the hassle.

You'll be sat there for hours on end trying to get Linux to work, Linux is fine for low end light machines, but not for old ones, there is this myth that Linux will run fine on older machines, nope it just wont, so you'll end up 10 hours later thinking I wish I never bothered and you'll have a Windows 98 machine that used to work, but now doesn't work at all, and your friend will be really annoyed with you, so let sleeping dogs lie my friend, I am talking from bitter experience.

[TheSword]

P.S. I'm sending this post from a SUSE 12.1 linux, so I do know what I'm on about.

[Oscar_]

"Wary" is a version of Puppy Linux which is specifically designed to work on older hardware and it does work.

The whole distro is only around 135 Megs in size and loads fully into RAM. Boot the live CD and you can take the disc out to use the drive for other things. Create a save-file (at first shutdown) of say 512 MB and all Puppy data is stored in that one file. Delete it at any time to completely remove. No need to install, better if you don't really. Windows 98 will not be affected in any way. Boot into Windows (with disc out) or boot into Puppy with disc in drive. On-board browser (SeaMonkey) works very well as do the other apps. More can be downloaded very easily if desired.

No need to mess about with the other Linuxes, they are all too bloated.

[Kal_El]

Because your hard drive is big enough, I'd say have a look at Lubuntu first. Should be good on your spec.

[Frank1]

Originally Posted by daniel34

I need to find a distro that runs on a low speck computer when I say low I mean low it is for a friend there computer is still on windows 98 and he is after getting the internet in but wont upgrade the dam computer

The CPU clock speed is 800mhz
The Ram in the machine is 256 mb
Hard disc drive is 16gb
DVD rom drive that I put in there a while ago before that it had cd rom

Tell him to scrap it and not be so tight