Hi there! We have a Pentium 133 lying around, and we would like to donate it to a charity institution. They said all they needed was to do some basic word processing, and maybe some "Excel" work. When it had Win98SE, the computer really ran slow. The specs are: Pentium 133 32MB Ram SiS Video Card 1.1GB Hard Drive I tried to install Mandrake Linux with Gnome, but it was just too slow still! Anyway, I don't mind reformatting the whole thing and starting from scratch. The goal would be: 1. Have a stable system running Linux 2. By having Linux as the OS, we hope that even a slow computer like this would not be as frustrating to use because we heard that Linux is more efficient and faster than Windows 98SE or WinXP (and besides, this computer doesn't meet the requirements of XP). 3. Install OpenOffice so they can use a word processing and spreadsheet. 4. We don't want to spend any more money on this, so we won't be upgrading the computer. Thanks for all the inputs! --Alf

just today i installed redhat 7.3 on a system very similer to yours. if your video card has 4 mb of video memory you can install 7.3 with kde. netscape works fine after its loaded. i dont recomend upgrading to 6.0 5.x comes with red hat. koffice also comes with red hat, a great word proccessor and will read excell docs. you wont have enough memory to install in graphical mode but it doesnt matter the graphical will work after install e-mail me i will be interested to see how it turns out mikefilamonte@hotmail.com

Okay, rather than what distro package to use, perhaps I should ask what Graphical Environment to use? Is it possible that it is Gnome that's slow? Maybe I should use KDE? I don't mind installing in text mode (which is what I did with Mandrake), but I do need a Graphical User Interface (the people at the charitable institution won't be able to work a text/console based system, which will make this donation useless). As I have time on my hands, I'll try to install RedHat and KDE. But since I have the Mandrake disks on hand, maybe I'll go for Mandrake/KDE. Do note, however, that I'm open to try another distro if that means better speed Any other suggestions from other folk out there? I'd appreciate it a lot. Thanks! --Alf alfredracho@yahoo.com

KDE and Gnome are just too complex and are overkill for what you need. As you have found, they don't perform well on older hardware. Fluxbox or some other Blackbox derivative, enlightenment, icewm and some others are all much less graphics intensive and therefore perform much faster. As for office apps, OpenOffice is rather bloated. AbiWord is a great word proc app(its fast) and Gnumeric is a great excel clone. Mandrake is supposed to have a unified menu system across different WM's witch would make trying out different ones somewhat easier and the various drake utils make many of the common tasks of getting a linux box up and running more 'Windows' like which the charity may appreciate. The charity may also appreciate if you get the networking to work on a MS network so they can share files over their lan, if they have one. Also be sure to use a simple printer setup(I recommend cups) so they can print from this new comp.

Well, distro, I'd say Debian. Window Manager, practically any apart from KDE or Gnome should be ok.

Okayy, update: I installed Mandrake with IceWM, and it was nice and quick. HOWEVER, as I'm not a Linux user, I'm pretty ignorant on how to use it. I re-installed (yes, I don't know how to install just packages :) ) Mandrake with KDE, and KDE is more tolerable than Gnome, speedwise. I will re-install Mandrake, and with IceWM (after a little research on how it works). And then I will install OpenOffice (while Abiword and Gnumeric may be great, I think OpenOffice has more the look and feel of Microsoft's Office which will make it easier for the end users). You see, Gnome and KDE have a very Windows-like interface (Start Menu and all that), whereas IceWM does not. :( But I appreciate all the feedback you guys have been giving! --Alf

abi word at least to my last knowledge is not cross compatible with microsoft or correl office packages (the two most common next to appleworks and quark) try star office there is a free port of it that is fully functional and is compatible with all popular formats.. found at sun microsystems web site as far as setting up a stable and fast linux box use a micro kernel like qnx i installex qnx in under two minutes a year ago and it still runs fine