Linux Suggestions for a old Pentium Pro

Alright, this is kinda the same old "which distro?" question, but I hope it's specific enough to not be annoying.

I have an old Pentium Pro 200MHz system that I would like to use to really learn linux.

Here's the full specs;
Intel Pentium Pro 200MHz (single cpu)
64MB EDO RAM (I could go to 128MB)
2.1GB Main Drive (I've got a stack of drives ranging from 20MB to 1.2GB if I need to use more than one drive)
8X CD-ROM (once again, I can run more than one if needed)
Creative Ensoniq PCI sound card (I've got a million SB ISA cards if they would be better for drivers)
2MB Video (Matrox Mystique, or I have another from Diamond)
10/100 LAN (Linksys or HP I think)
etc.

I know I'm not going to be running the latest release of any distro, so I just wanted some options.
It needs to be newbie approved. I want something as simple as possible to get my confidence up before I start tackling the more complex aspects.

Also, I'm running Win98SE on it right now, so I may want to dual boot, as I use this system for work. If it's a pain, I can always throw together another similar system to avoid dual booting.

Thanks in advance for any help.

 

Try mandrake, its one of the more easier to install distros.
I got mandrake 9.1 (newest release) barely running on a p166 with 32 edo running x windows. You should add a couple of the biggest hdd. Then when installing, choose customo disk partitions and set the biggest hdd as the "/" and then the other one, put the swap partition on, about 80 meg for 64 ram or 160meg for that. Then for the home partition use the rest, or more windows space if you want, just click the big white block left over and click the green(I think its green) windows block.
If you want some screen shots for examples, just ask.

also, just as a precaution, set the windows drive to master or slave with the cd drive on the secondary channel. linux has its own bootloader which will also boot windows. Installing windows on the boot drive will mess up the bootloader and a rebuild of linux will be necessary

 

LFS, Gentoo, or Slackware.

Most other distros are too bloated to run on that kind of system (well, at least not without waiting 20 minutes to pull up your kicker). Or are not approved for use by me by anyone. Madrake falls under that category.

 

true, I agree with Kargin.
The 166 took more than a half hour to get into Bash, then starting x windows was a pain to wait for

 

Erm . . . X ? I think not. At least not much of an X environment.


On that kid of system, your going to need to slim everything down, make everything run as fast as possible, etc. It's oging to be a bit of a task, but, the best way to learn anything is to jsut jump right into the deep end. Don't worry, you won't drown. We're here to keep your head above the water.

And besides, ahving a slimmed down install is a good challenge to set yourself for. Installing Linux and getting it running is fairly basic now a days, so ahving that challenge will amke it more enjoyable and a better learning experience.


Cheers mate.

 

Thanks for the suggestions.

I managed to download Redhat 7.3 and install it.

At first, it ran just fine. It booted up into X in about the same time Win98 or 2k do on this same system.

However, after I tried to configure my network, now it takes that 15-20 minutes to boot up. Now, I know I did something wrong in the settings. I've got my faster Win2K system running my ADSL connection, and I was trying to get Linux to work with Internet Connection Sharing like I had before with Win98. I found a couple sites that talked about setting this up, and I thought I followed it properly, but I can't get a connection. In my Windows frame of mind, I did a reboot to see if that changed anything. This is when it took the 15-20 to boot up, and now it runs like a 286.

I watched the whole boot sequence, and it gave me an OK for my eth0 connection....in fact I didn't see any errors while booting.

I think I like the idea of Gentoo. I've had Mandrake installed once on another system, but it was too much like Windows. I was impressed by how easy it's install went, but I think it was a bit too easy. I do enjoy a good challenge. I originally thought I'd find the easiest distro and go from there, but I think I'll be better off to really learn things from scratch. Then, by the time I've got it installed, configuring my network should be a lot less confusing.

Also, when I'm actually comfortable with Linux, wouldn't using this old box as a router be better than having the ADSL run off Windows??

 

Yeah, router/firewal box is a good use for it. Since a system like that wouldn't even need a monitor, let alone an X environment, it would run faster, if anythign was needed, jsut remotely login and screw it up

PS for networking with Windwos and Linux boxes your going to need SMB and LISA. I thiknk my one friend told me teh new version of SMB handles everythign now, so LISA isn't required, but I'm not sure on that one, so you'd have to check it out.