[NTLUG:Discuss] Question...

[Steve Baker]

D wrote:
> 
> Greetings everyone...
> 
> I have a very poor hardware sitting at my place.  P-I 133MHz -
> 32 Kb RAM 2GB HD and a 32X CDROM.  I have tried installing
> Redhat 6.0 but I couldnt get X to run on it.  So now I am
> planning on going with either of the following:
> 
> 1) Redhat 7.1/7.2 ???
> 2) Suse
> 3) Mandrake
> 
> Can anyone suggest me on which of the above is better?  I know
> there will be huge differences in everybody's opinions.  I also
> know that I will get answers like 32 RAM is too low, but this is
> what I have and I dont have money + source of money for
> upgrading hardware.  So if you were to suggest me unbiasly from
> your favorite, what of the above will be a way to go?

My favorite is SuSE.  RedHat and Mandrake tend to be kinda similar
because Mandrake used the RedHat distro as their starting point and
kinda track the versions and hacks that RedHat do.

But I doubt that any of the latest versions of these are gonna work
well in 32Mb RAM (or even install with only 2Gb of disk).  As you
correctly guess, my first suggestion *is* "get more RAM".  RAM is
spectacularly cheap right now - a friend of mine bought a 128Mb stick
for $27 last week.  If you can get up to 64Mb - that would be enough.
I bet you could find someone who has a machine with another 32Mb that
they are chucking out that you could scrounge.

If you are determined to go with just 32Mb, I suggest looking for an
OLD distro - there was a time when I was running X on a 16MHz 486 with
only 8Mb RAM and a 250Mb hard drive...so it's certainly possible.  It's
just that the most popular Linux distro's are the ones with the most
goodies...which eat RAM and disk space.

You could look at one of the small distro's - there are a couple out
there that fit on two floppies - including X - I would imagine they'd
also run in very little RAM.

Good luck!

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