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Devil
10-23-2001, 04:48 PM
Hi
I am completly new to linux. I have an old laptop at 233mhz and 128ram lying around.
I am thinking of getting linux on it but I don't know what to get.
Red hat
Mandrake
Slackware
or something else
I will be usinh it to learn linux and do a little programming. i want to use a X window system.
It should be easy to install and get going.
Any ideas???
scanez
10-23-2001, 04:52 PM
You could always do a search on the NUMEROUS similar posts that have been made...
Mandrake is usually considered to be the most newbie-friendly so you might want to look into starting with that. But after you get the hang of it. try some other distros and decide for yourself which is the best for you.
Have fun
SC
bdg1983
10-23-2001, 05:34 PM
We haven't seen one of these questions for what? an hour?
madfgurtbn
10-23-2001, 05:37 PM
FWIW, I'm also very new; I haven't had good luck with either Mandrake or RH. Mandrake can't get my mouse working so I can't complete and install. I got RH 7.0 to install, but I could never get it to work with my network cards. I was hoping that RH 7.2 would fix that, but when I ran the installer I ended up deleting my 7.0 installation because I'm too stupid to figur out the disk partitioning thingy, so now I'm trying a clean RH 7.2 install now, but that keeps hanging (but never at the same place). If it doesn't work this time, I suppose I'll download another distro and try again.. Anyway, to answer your question, my experience has been that neither RH or the supposedly newbie friendly Mandrake are really easy, but at least I was able to get RH 7.0 to run, albeit with no networking. Now I don't have either running, since the attempted upgrade.
X_console
10-23-2001, 05:49 PM
Since you haven't had much luck with RedHat or Mandrake, try Slackware.
teeitup
10-23-2001, 07:57 PM
Go to: www.google.com/linux (http://www.google.com/linux)
Search for your laptop like this: compaq armada 1750
You should get plenty of information, how tos, success stories and horror stories. It should become clear what was successful.
Works for me all the time.
Good Luck,
deadlock
10-24-2001, 03:51 AM
I had RedHat running without flaw on an Armada M700, FWIW.
One thing we gots to ask here is whether or not you have
a) a high-speed internet connection (ie, at work ?)
b) a CD burner and some blank CDs
c) lots of spare time
If the answer to all of the above is YES, then I suggest downloading the ISOs for any distro you come across and giving them all a whirl until you settle on one that does what you want with the minimum of fuss.
Mandrake 8.0 is quite lovely as well.