Linux OR WinME for low spec PC email/net machine?

[gsf600y]

I have got hold of an old PC.
Its a pentium 166 or 233 or something around that area. 96mb ram. About 4gb HDD. No soundcard. Old motherboard. Not ATX i think.....I couldnt see an AGP slot on it.

I want to turn it into a machine that can solely be used for emailing, and surfing the internet.
Also it will given to a PC novice.

I have got Mandrake 8.1 installed on it at the moment, but it runs like an absolute dog.

I wanted to know if I would be better of streamlining/configuring/tuning Mandrake, or just binning it and going with WinME?

Basically, all I need is a desktop with 3 icons on it.
1 - "Connect to net"
2 - "Email"
3 - "Internet Browser"

Any thoughts?

thanks

 

[Adz]

Fluxbox could be your friend here. DEFINITELY do not go with windows ME!

Did you hear that if you play the Windows ME disk backwards it tells you to worship the devil?

Even worse - if you play it forwards it installs Windows ME!!!

If you're not using Linux, go for windows 98. It has everything ME has, but with slightly less crashes.

 

[KevB]

Seeing that they are a novice your probably better of giving them Windows. Windows 95 would be better for the spec than ME.

 

[gsf600y]

Problem with an OS like W95 is that it might have problems with the latest browsers, and therefore viewing some websites?

Although it is to be used by a novice, I suppose there would not be much difference to learning how to use a Linux browser/email client than a Windows Browser/Email client.

I see Fluxbox is a window manager....would that be a better option that KDE/Gnome?

Any recommendations for a less resource hungry distrubution, something that will run a bit faster than Mandrake maybe?

 

[Mpemba Effect]

I'd say definately run linux. Fluxbox and Phoenix or Mozilla. With something like mozilla mail or Sylpheed. If they don't know enough to be tinkering around in windows anyway, it doesn't matter what they run ... so it may as well be the better OS.

 

[KevB]

Originally posted by gsf600y
Problem with an OS like W95 is that it might have problems with the latest browsers, and therefore viewing some websites?

Any recommendations for a less resource hungry distrubution, something that will run a bit faster than Mandrake maybe?

I'd be more concerned about not being able to access sites from Linux. Aren't there sites which only allow Internet Explorer to be used? (Not sure how much of a problem this is as I don't use Linux for web browsing)

I'm running Debian (Woody) with Blackbox on a P2 400 and that runs pretty quickly, depends what applications you use also though.

 

[gsf600y]

I know Opera can be set to 'mimick' other browsers, so that shouldnt be a problem.

 

[Arc]

WinME would be much better on that machine that Win98 , only if you turn off sys restore and all its other helpful stuff that it installs .

Although installing flux would be a much better idea as its resource use is a lot less than that of KDE and so more suited for a machine of that age.

Oh and nice sig gsf600y .

 

[Shak]

Personally I say run the following:

1. Ximian Evolution - a great mail client, a little like Outlook but much better
2. Phoenix - superb web browser
3. Fluxbox - a lightweight window manager
4. idesk - I think that this is needed to get the icons
   [/list=1]
   
   Are you on dial up? And if so do you have a winmodem?
   
   Shak

 

[gsf600y]

No modem in the PC as yet, but I wont be getting a winmodem as I know they dont work with Linux. I have an external hardware modem on my main PC I can test with.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

One last question though - should I use the above software with Mandrake currently installed, or install another distrubution?

 

[Edward78]

WinME is the biggest mistake to come out of MS yet.

 

[Shak]

I think that Mandrake will be a little overloaded for that machine, try Redhat, or even a smaller distro such as debian or slackware, these last two will require a little more effort

Shak

 

[Adz]

A mate of mine from college is running Mandrake 8.2 on a P100 with 32mb of RAM It's his only PC and he doesn't even have a modem, yet he's totally into computers.

On that machine I'd definitely go for something lighter though. Gentoo would be great but I dread to think of the build times on that thing. Windows 98 would run pretty good on that spec though and really isn't that bad.

 

[Shak]

Gentoo can be cross compiled, its actually a superb idea, compile the gentoo system on a different machine and then start the machine with the gentoo system, super fast and pretty ace too

Shak

 

[xgfunk]

i got a p166mmx 32mb ram 4gb hd ... runs win98se, mainly for d/l and surfing. runs a treat

 

[Mpemba Effect]

I've just had a quick play with idesk and it rocks! I definately think this is the way to go for that machine gsf600y ... take a look http://www.selman.demon.co.uk/linux/idesk.jpg

 

[Shak]

Originally posted by Mpemba Effect
I've just had a quick play with idesk and it rocks! I definately think this is the way to go for that machine gsf600y ... take a look http://www.selman.demon.co.uk/linux/idesk.jpg

**** me! Thats blooming gorgeous! I WILL be installing that, can you have smaller icons and stuff?

Shak

 

[Mpemba Effect]

Mr Shak sir you can have any icon size you so much desire, I just grabbed the first icons I could find to test The icons are any png (I think you can use gif and jpgs too although haven't tried it). I think it looks pretty good for 5 minutes of messing about The proggie really simple and is really good on resources, has nice adjustable transparency and other behaviour. The icons I used were grabbed from http://eljay.swoo.net/?node=BeOS Icons and theres more here http://www.kde-look.org/index.php?xcontentmode=all2&xsortmode=new

 

[Shak]

I love those BeOS ones, Ill have a look and see if I can get them smaller later on, maybe just resize them in the GIMP.

I want to have a shortcut to run evolution, xchat, and phoenix on my desktop

Shak

 

[Adz]

Sorry for the thread hi-jack but I'm having problems with Idesk. It says cannot find font whichever font I try, yes my config files are correct. On the gentoo forums people have had similar problems but I don't see a fix . Is it working for you shak?