Suggestions on best distro to install on this box.

[Jonathan Hutchins]

On Tuesday 26 August 2003 1:59 pm, Chris Wagner wrote:
> Right now we have a Win2K box that I am considering installing Linux on
> (actually not considering - is a done deal, just need suggestions), but
> I'm not sure which distro might be the best for the need.

> K6-2 366
> 196MB
> 20GB

You might see if you can bump the RAM a bit - that'll make a big difference.  
RedHat and Mandrake 9 are pretty good on hardware of that level.  I'm running 
Mandrake 9.1 on a 300MHz laptop that's maxed out at 96M of RAM.  It's slow 
and thrashy especially when loading, and if I let myself get more than about 
three serious applications going it'll start to swap pretty bad and bog down, 
but it handles console stuff effortlessly.

I installed the downloadable verison of RedHat 9 on something like you have, 
and I was dissappointed with it.  Between leaving out MP3 support and then 
cutting out support for things like importing fonts from the Windows 
partition, and aparantly "streamlining" the applications offered, it seemed 
"dumbed down".  I have wondered whether the purchased edition is any more 
full featured - if it weren't, I'd feel cheated if I paid for it.

Mandrake shares some of the quirks of the 9.x releases - install has lost a 
step or two in smoothness and can be screwed up too easily, but I'm pretty 
happy with the end product.  Enough so that I don't use Windows except for 
programs that won't run under Wine.

Once you have a base install, you can use URPMI to get the package set closer 
to what you have with YellowDog, and using the same init and configuration 
tools will make it easier on you.