Re: [seul-edu] appropriate lightweight distribution

[David Johnston <david@johnstons.net>]

cfm@maine.com wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 14, 2001, Keir and Robyn wrote:
>> I am planning on rebirthing some decrepid P133
>> 16MB 1GB Windows machines as Linux word
>> processing and internet terminals.  Can anyone
>> recommend a distribution?  I was planning on
>> using Red Hat, since it seems the most widely
>> available, but someone suggested that it might
>> be too large and that I should try a ?light
>> weight? distribution such as Slackware.  I
>> was unaware that there were any differences
>> in distributions from a hardware requirement
>> standpoint.  Can anyone suggest a distribution
>> for this purpose?
cfm@maine.com wrote back:
> P133 will work, 16MB will work only in
> console mode, forget X.  More ram and you
> could run X but your would need more disk
> too, or NFS.
> Christopher F. Miller, Publisher
> MaineStreet Communications, Inc

Christopher is right; running a full installation including X with
16MB will be unworkably slow.  Look at LTPS (ltsp.org).  Their setup
lets you run just X and nothing else on the desktop; you will need a
single larger machine to run the word processor.  This split design
works very well with old equipment once you have it set up.

-David