[Nottingham] Distro reccomendations for older PC

[Martin Garton]

> This is my first post to the NLUG, so be gentle with me!
>
> I've got an old PC here that I want to install Linux on to play around
> with. Its a home build Athlon  XP 1800+, with 512Mb RAM, 80Gb maxtor,
> Radeon 9200SE. So nothing very special. It will be fitted with a
> wireless card I've got to hand, which is based on the Railink chipset,
> so there are native linux drivers available.

No overall suggestion, but just a comment about the gfx card.

Although the Radeon 9200SE is nothing special by todays standards, its is
almost the highest spec card you can get that is well supported for both
2d and 3d accelleration in the fully open source xorg drivers.  If you
value not having to run untrusted unauditable binaries in kernel mode or
as root on your machine, then this is worth noting.

For example, my machine has a 9200SE and is able to run aiglx and compiz
very well indeed.  I don't play many newer games, so I can't comment on
that.

-- 
Martin.