Eeyore wrote:


I'm keen to explore Linux but my results to date haven't been very
promising. It seems to me that the much-touted 'live' CDs require a fairly
modern PC to run.

Don't give up, Linux is very rewarding and worth the effort! I run Kubuntu
on a PIII 500MHz desktop with 384MB RAM and it gives me no problems. I also
have Linux on a Duron 1300MHz desktop with 384MB RAM, an HP Omnibook 6100
laptop (PIII 1GHz, 384MB RAM) and a Duron 1600 with 1GB RAM I use as a
server. None are what I'd describe as fairly modern!


I've successfully run other distros on old hardware as well. The only
problems I've encountered have been graphics related, i.e. the card or
monitor being incorrectly identified resulting in a sync output
incompatible with the monitor and a blank screen, or issues with
PCI/interrupt routing. Both have been very easily fixed though- one thing
Linux doesn't lack is documentation, FAQs and howtos!

However, while Linux generally runs on just about anything, (sometimes with
a bit of tweaking), like just about all modern OSes it does like a lot of
RAM. You can just about get away with running X on 128MB but I wouldn't
recommend less than 256MB. Laptops can be tricky (wireless LAN etc) but
still not too much bother if you can find open source drivers for some of
the 'funny' hardware they often have.

Morse