async(a)slingshot.co.nz wrote:
I have a tutor with a problem. He wants to send a whole lot of machines back to his home town in South Africa and has asked me to help. The problem is that most of the machines have 32/64MB RAM and only P2's with very small hard drives. I was wondering if anyone could recommend a distro that would run on these specs and be easy for people who have not touched a computer before. Ideally, it would run XFCE or something that is low on resource usage.
I am looking at maybe Puppy, DSL or MepisLite.
I have found that although DSL, Puppy and other mini live-cds run fairly well on low-spec machines, they can be a pain to install to hard disk because of limited memory. I usually whip the HD out and do the install on one of my better-specced machines. You don't mention how "very small" the HDs on these machines are. If they have 500MB or more, you might want to consider a "full" distro. In this case, I would reccommend Slackware. Why? * The non-graphic install works very well with 16mb memory (it copes with even less!). * It is very configurable * You have greater control over which programs are installed (less bloat on a small HD) * The default kernel seems to be less demanding on limited resources than some other "full" distros (it is a bit of a bugger to re-compile a kernel on a low-spec machine) * It is rock-solid The objection to Slackware seems to be the non-GUI method of configuration. It certainly isn't for newbies. If these machines are to be set up by someone who is Linux-savvy, that shouldn't be a problem. The new manual is excellent! The inherent stability of Slackware should make it more "suitable" for newcomers than the flashy flakiness of some other distros. regards, ********************************************* Dr Denise J. Bates, School of Geography & Environmental Science University of Auckland Private Bag 92019, Auckland New Zealand E-mail: d.bates(a)auckland.ac.nz Telephone 09-3737599 ext 86592 *********************************************