What's the best linux distro for this pc?

[wesley9946]

Hi everyone,

I got a kinda old pc which i dunno what linux distro to put on it.

Specs:

NEC i-Select D5410
Latest AMI BIOS, made on 05/05/06
1.8GHz AMD Sempron 3000+
1.8GB RAM (3x512MB, 1x256MB) @ 266MHz
128MB ATI Radeon 200

 

[beers]

Ideally something pretty light, but it really just depends on your preferences.

It should be able to run a 'full size' distro without too many issues, although something like Lubuntu or any distro really with XFCE or LXDE would be a good bet.

 

[TrainTrackHack]

That machine is still powerful enough to run any "full" Linux distro without any problems, I'd just pick the one that you like the best. You *may* run across some issues with that GPU if you use hardware accelerated composition, though.

Linux Mint is my favourite for something that is quick to get started with and feels reasonable familiar to a Windows user.

 

[wesley9946]

ok, i will dd (have Lubuntu, changing soon to ubuntu, on my DELL Inspiron 9400 laptop/wifi receiver over LAN cable for that pc) linux mint xfce to my usb stick and then i'll see

 

[pane-free]

You sound like you already had something in mind-- so why ask for suggestions?
---------------------------------------------------------------
re: bootable USB --

FIND OUT HOW THE USB DEVICE IS RECOGNIZED BY YOUR SYSTEM:

sudo ls -l /dev/disk/by-id/*usb*

EXAMPLE OUTPUT TO THE ABOVE COMMAND may be something like --

rwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 2010-03-15 22:54 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-_USB_DISK_2.0_077508380189-0:0 -> ../../sdb
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 2010-03-15 22:54 /dev/disk/by-id/usb-_USB_DISK_2.0_077508380189-0:0-part1 -> ../../sdb1

CONCLUSION:
USB is therefore recognized as /dev/sdb in general, and any partition thereon is /dev/sdbX (sdb1 in the above example)

sudo dd if=/path/to/iso/nameof.iso of=/dev/sdX bs=4096;sync

I would suggest Handy Linux, but it looks like you'll do what you want, anyway.

 

[wesley9946]

I would suggest Handy Linux, but it looks like you'll do what you want, anyway.

Handy Linux might be a nice option (mint feels heavy) for pc's released in 2006 with a hardware config like that, P.S i know how to dd (using dcfldd < you can use it the same way as dd but you can see it writing (counting MB's) while dd is quite)

 

[pane-free]

Thank you for that option to the dd command, wesley9946!

If comfortable with a more traditional Debian distro, I find antiX of even more lively performance than any distro with either XFCE or LXDE and it will function well on most any platform. Just choose the F-key options before installing, and I suggest IceWM for a Windows Manager.