> From: Scott Fike
> SUBJECT: breathing new life into an old box
>  I have an elderly friend who has an old 386 box and I was
> wanting to install a
> mini Linux distribution on it for him just so he could send and
> recieve e-mail
> and surf the net. I know these mini distro's were made to breathe
> new life into
> these obsolete boxes. Trouble is, there are so many of these mini
> distro's out
> there, that I can't decide on which one to go with.
> The distro needs to be super easy to install (I'm still a newbie
> myself) and
> should preferably have an easy to use point and click, drag and
> drop GUI. A
> good, stable e-mail client and web browser are going to be the
> heart and sole
> of this box.

I don't know, but you'd need to learn how to install X Windows server I
think.  I installed Red Hat Linux 6.1 (KDE Desktop) on a friend's computer a
few days ago, and it runs fine.  Haven't been able to install it on a 486
yet.. Having some conflicts with the onboard video *shudder*

> All I know about the box is that it is a 386 with a math
> co-processor installed
> and has a 3 1/2" and 5 1/4" floppy drives. No CD-ROM. He has an
> external 14.4
> modem for it, but I plan on getting him a U.S. Robotics 56K
> external. I'm not
> for sure how much RAM is installed but I'm guessing somewhere
> between 4 to 8MB-
> I'll find out for sure next weekend.  :)
> In the mean-time, I would appreciate any suggestions for a mini
> distribution
> from ALL on the list.
>

Well.. I really enjoy Red Hat Linux (In fact, you can get the latest distro
from www.redhat.com ) and have toyed with Caldera OpenLinux.  Dunno which
would be best, since it's based on user preference.  I've found RedHat to
have an easy-to-use and understandable installation set, as well as
OpenLinux.

Just my two cents!

Joe Brouhard
joeb@armada.homeip.net