Four distros recommended for older machines

[floppybootstomp]

Link to article

I can vouch for Linux Lite for older machines, recently installed it on a Socket A / 2.1Ghz / 1Gb RAM machine and it fairly flies along.

I tried several other distros on the same machine including Mint and they all dragged their heels.

 

[Ian]

I seem to remember @Quadophile mentioning Puppy Linux quite a long time ago - I'm glad to see it is still going strong . Quite surprising that it can still run with a 333Mhz CPU and 256MB ram - even a super low end phone could beat that!

What are you using the old machine for nowadays? A Linux test-machine or for old games?

 

[floppybootstomp]

What are you using the old machine for nowadays? A Linux test-machine or for old games?

I was running Win 98 on it for the sole purpose of playing some old games but there are only a few games now that I need Win 98 for as lots of those older games are now available on GOG (Good Old Games) and are playable in Win 7/8/10.

So I swapped the (IDE/PATA) hard disk, keeping the one with Win 98 installed on it cos Win 98 is very awkward to set up and get running stable IME, and put in a different hard disk purely for messing about with different Linux Distros, an experimental machine, if you will.

 

[Abarbarian]

I was running Win 98 on it for the sole purpose of playing some old games but there are only a few games now that I need Win 98 for as lots of those older games are now available on GOG (Good Old Games) and are playable in Win 7/8/10.

So I swapped the (IDE/PATA) hard disk, keeping the one with Win 98 installed on it cos Win 98 is very awkward to set up and get running stable IME, and put in a different hard disk purely for messing about with different Linux Distros, an experimental machine, if you will.

You might like this offering then which should fly along on your test bed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USU_(operating_system)#System_Requirements

http://learnfree.eu/desktop/features/?lang=en

There are some interesting offerings forking from the Devuan project that may interest you,

https://devuan.org/

Distributions based on Devuan
Various operating system distributions have already started adopting Devuan as a base OS. Here below a list in order of chronological appearance. When reviewing Devuan we do recommend taking derivatives in consideration: they harness the power of our base distribution targeting it at specific usage and this is exactly what we mean to achieve with Devuan. The default desktop provided by classic installer-iso images shouldn’t be considered the way we mean to use Devuan on the desktop.

• Gnuinos http://gnuinos.org
• Refracta http://www.ibiblio.org/refracta
• Exe GNU/Linux http://exegnulinux.net
• Nelum-dev1 https://sourceforge.net/projects/nelum-dev1
• EterTICs https://gnuetertics.org
• MIYO https://sourceforge.net/projects/miyolinux/
• Star https://sourceforge.net/projects/linnix
• heads https://heads.dyne.org
• Dowse http://dowse.eu/
• good-life-linux https://sourceforge.net/projects/good-life-linux/
• Crowz https://sourceforge.net/projects/crowz/

As yer using old kit and are pretty ancient yerself I thought that the GOOD LIFE LINUX might be of special interest,

Description
Good Life Linux was made so that users with older hardware could install a minimal and base LXDE, Openbox, or Xfce system in order to make their system into what they need without any additional bloat to remove. Featuring the artwork of Ghost Sixtyseven, you get an attractive, stable, and base system (that's low on resources) which allows you to add only what you want or need. What goes on your system is up to you.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Thassa lotta links.

I bookmarked the first three and then from the list Goodlife.

Does Goodlife come with a Felicity Kendall desktop pic? If so then that's the distro for me

 

[bootneck02]

 

[Abarbarian]

Thassa lotta links.

I bookmarked the first three and then from the list Goodlife.

Does Goodlife come with a Felicity Kendall desktop pic? If so then that's the distro for me

Yup Goodlife has these as wallpapers