[GLLUG] new guy to Linux, need a few reccomendations

[Chick Tower]

You're gotten some good answers, especially about Puppy Linux, Bert.  If 
you go with that, though, just run it from the CD.  It runs as root, so 
you don't want anyone getting root access to a permanent installation.

If you like Ubuntu, you could try Fluxbuntu.  It's a few releases behind 
Ubuntu, but it's lightweight.  I've run it on a Pentium II with 64MB or 
128MB (I can't recall).

Slackware and Arch would run fine on your machine.  I don't think 
they're as difficult to set up as the BSDs, but they're not as easy as 
Ubuntu.  Arch is more like Ubuntu for installing software.  Slax and 
Vector are based upon Slackware, so they would work, and they're made to 
be easier to manage and to install software on.

As Clay said, Fluxbox is a fine window manager for old PCs.  It's easy 
to edit the menu to add whatever apps you want after they're installed. 
  Xfce isn't really as light as we've been led to believe, almost as 
demanding as Gnome.

                                Chick


Bert W. Carrier Jr. wrote:
> My question is:   I have a P3, 500mhz dinosaur laptop with 192mb RAM,
> and I want to run linux on it for word processing, email, and web
> surfing.   I tried Xubuntu with no success, it's far too slow.  I
> installed the base Ubuntu system from the alternate install CD, and
> installed IceWM, but I didn't care for that.   I don't think I am ready
> to build my own version of a GUI.  What is a good, prepackaged distro
> for a slow old beater?  
> 
> How about Fluxbox, has anyone tried it?