Want to dual-boot Linux on this junk computer

By akiratheoni
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akiratheoni

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Currently my junk computer has 64 MB of RAM and a Pentium II processor. It runs Windows 98. From what I can tell I got it somewhere in the window of 1998, so it's an old piece of junk.

I want to dual-boot Linux on it, but I want to get the opinions of the better computer techs here what distribution I should get or if it matters at all. Also, if possible, I'd like to know if the computer *could* run Linux without slowing down or lagging too much.

Thanks in advance.

~Jeffrey~

PS: I'm completely new to Linux

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akiratheoni

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Well I'm interested in Debian at this point; but I'm not entirely sure was distribution I'm getting, the 'netinst' images, or the 'businesscard' images? And there are choices to download, like alpha, arm, hppa, etc... I don't know what to get.

~Jeffrey~

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markwolfe Veteran

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Netinstall has the very basics, then downloads the packages you tell it to off the net at time of install (I believe).

The alpha, arm, sparc, PPC, etc. are CPU archetecture types supported. You want i586 (or i486 or i386) for the Intel Pentium (or 80486 or 80386) CPU.

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madd_matt

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Debian should work fine for you.

the difference between the business card CD and the netinst CD is how much is downloaded before install or after.

With the netinst image, you get enough to actually set up a working system, but very minimal. with the business card image you need to download from the internet during the install.

Linux will run fine on that machine; i run it on a pentium 1, 133mhz, 32mb ram, and it works okay. You should be fine with a lightwieght window manager like fluxbox, but if you're used to a more full environment xfce might be a good choice for you.

  • 2 weeks later...
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Brian M. Veteran

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  cropcircles said:

SuSe 10 sets up a dual boot automatically and has a nice boot screen. You just run the default set up menu and your good to go.

are you mad?!?!? :D - i wouldnt run suse 10 on anything with less that 512MB of ram - if you want suse, use 9.3 - i tried suse 10 on my second pc (RIG2 in my sig), and it was appauling - but suse 9.1 works like a dream on it.

BTW, apart from the ram and HDD, everything else in that pc is original components, and it has a "built for windows 95" sticker on it :D

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