[SWLUG] Linux on an ancient box

[Lyn David Thomas]

On Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:59:57 GMT
Gareth Watkins <gw at garethwatkins.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Because of work & ignorance, I have to use Windows most of the time.
> But I've been so bothered by hackers lately (they seem to be waiting
> there & turn up within a minute or two, but the firewall blocks some
> or all of them) that I'd like to have a browsing-only PC. I've got
> some old PCs, e.g. a P-100 with about 90Mb RAM.
> Can anyone suggest a small Linux system that would run a browser (over
> a 56K modem) on a PC as primitive as that? (I have RedHat CDs going
> back quite a long way, & Mozillas.) And what browser? (Not e.g. Lynx,
> because pictures are sometimes useful.)
> Or could I do a custom install of FC2 that would give me a bare
> minimum of what I need? Does anybody know of an absolutely minimal
> list of essential applications? I just want to look at web pages
> (without viewing videos etc) and occasionally download files.
> Any ideas?
> Thanks
> Gareth Watkins

For this you could do a lot worse than run Vector Linux, a Slackware
derived distribution that is designed for older machines.

100mhz is a bit slow but 90MB ram will make a difference. 

Have a look at http://www.vectorlinux.com

I have certainly run Vector 4 download edition on a P1 166 quite well
with 32 MB of RAM, though I think Firefox and Opera work far better on
64MB.

In addition Vector has the best, most informative, and most attitude
free forums of any distribution I have come across.

Once you have set up the machine (and the install is text based but very
easy to follow), I'd install the firewall (it doesn't come as standard
til version 4.3) Gshield is suggested - it can be found online at their
website, together with some instructions on how to install.

As standard it comes with Fluffbox, IceWM and XFCE as window managers. 
If you buy the delux version you get loads of extras.

For information on what are the specifications for all the different
versions of Vector look at:

ttp://www.ibiblio.org/pub/linux/distributions/vectorlinux/docs/miscella
neous/version_table.html

These are recommended specifications, rather than minimum, you certainly
can get away with a slower cpu if you have a lot of memory.