Choosing a linux distro

[Martin]

I need a linux distribution with the following requirements. This is for a couple that I know, and these are the requirements:

Will run on a 300-400MHz PC with 64-128mb of ram (I don't know the exact specs, but right now it's booting a bugged up install of a Japanese version of Windows 98). This rules out Gnome/KDE - would Xfce run well enough on here? I'm not too worried about it, but these people aren't exactly tech savvy, so it should offer a fairly intuitive U.I. (so no Fluxbox or things like that).

Support for a Japanese and English user interface. They want it so that one account can be English, the other Japanese.

Install size as small as possible. Again I have no idea what disk space they have but I'm imagining it's in the 10GB range.

They're primarily going to be using it for stuff like email and maybe a bit of word processing (with something a bit faster than OO.org - any suggestions there? )

Right now I'm thinking xubuntu, but I'm definitely looking for other suggestions. Thanks in advance!

[r.3volved]

I would recommend something along the lines of either DSL or Slackware with XFCE

Slackware is a great distro. I've tried many, but I always end up back with Slack. It gives you the option to use KDE/Gnome/Fluxbox/Blackbox/XFCE, it allows for multiple language support and during install you can easily pick and chose what daemons and resources are to be used. Slackware 10.2 has lots of supported devices which should be no problem for a machine that old. I found that it wasn't as bloated as many other distros like SUSE or Fedora.

I used to run Slackware 10 on my old IBM Thinkpad(hackpad) with a 400Mhz processor and 128MB ram and it ran awesome.

It's a bit more advanced than some other distros and will require a walkthrough to show them how to install various tools and apps, but it supports installation from source and RPM (could easily write a bash script to set up automated installs)

DSL(damn small linux) is a great little disto, but it will take a good deal of configuring, which isn't a good thing for someone unfamiliar with linux to begin with.

[timmytheturtle]

I second using DSL with XFCE.

As for a faster word processor then OO.org, I suggest Abiword. I use It and it doesn't seem to hog up all my resources, though I'm not sure about it's Japanese character support.

[md]

DSL might be your best bet. You could probably use more complex distro's like arch and get better performance, but given who you say it's for that might not be practical.

I'm giving gentoo (with xfce4) a try on a laptop I have temporarily aquired (P3, 128mb ram, 5gb drive) so I'll let you know if it performs.

[wtd]

Let me just throw this out...

LTSP?

[r.3volved]

LTSP??
Thow it out with no explaination!?

[wtd]

Google "LTSP linux"?

[r.3volved]

Quote:

LTSP is an add-on package for Linux that allows you to connect lots of low-powered thin client terminals to a Linux server. Applications typically run on the server, and accept input and display their output on the thin client display.

...this doesn't even look useful at all...
He's got one tower and you're telling him to install a client system to connect to a non-existent server system??
I don't get it.

You can't throw a recommendation out without explaining why you recommend it. Google gives lots of specifications and info...but the point of the thread is for recommendations from past experience.

[md]

I can see why it was thrown out... but the point about a lack of a server is still semi-valid. There might be an open server somewhere in japan to which they can connect... what with the supposed speeds of internet connections there in japan...

[r.3volved]

So it allows you to connect to ANY server??
The way I understood it was that they require their own server and then they can run multiple dumb terminals from it...which seems awefully redundant to me considering they only want one machine.

I could understand if there were a load of public servers, but I never saw any mention when I was googling it.

[md]

You are required to connect to a LTSP server, however you can run your own LTSP server . Theoretically there might be such a server already running on the internet which allows puclic access; then you'd just need to connect to it.

In practice I dunno how useful that'd be. 'Course I haven't really read much about LTSP either, I'm mostly basing this off my experiences with dumb clients/servers.

[rdrake]

I've had Ubuntu running just fine on a PII 400 MHz with 64 MB RAM machine in the past. Ran with Gnome and OOo, just somewhat slow at times.

Also run FreeBSD on it without any problems at all, however, the default X windowing system which comes with it may not fill your purpose . Could always try out PC-BSD, though. Also not sure of the Japanese language support with BSD, but it should work.