For those of you who are Linux geeks: I have some underpowered P3s at the shelter which we put Windows 2000 on for the guys to do up resumes and stuff on. The Windows 2000 boxes aren’t going to get a lot of love and I am wondering if a Linux shell like Good OS would be a better option? I am looking for simple, easy to use Linux install. The less features the better. I am also thinking of putting this on a box for Mark to use for his computer. If you have any opinions on what I should use, let me know.
ubuntu all the way, you can install a lite version of it too for slower machines, but it will run great on a p3
I have used Ubuntu for school, games and video editing for the last 6 years. If you’re going for Ubuntu I recommend you get 8.04 LTS “Hardy Heron” instead of 8.10 “Intrepid Ibex”.
On the lower-hardware-requirements end of the spectrum you may try Puppy (good usability, easy installation, can be run off hard drive, Flash drive or CD). I have also heard good things about Zen Linux but I have not used it myself. My Comm-tech teacher always recommends Slackware. There are lots of low-spec choices, just don’t use Damn Small Linux.
These low-end distros are perfect for email and Web browsing with their default software, but if you want to be able to install additional software you will have to learn to install from source; Debian- and Fedora-based distros (any also Puppy I think) allow you to download, install and update binaries from “repositories”.
A good linux software distribution to use would be Fedora 7. I like all of the Fedora versions, but I found 7 to be quite easy to use. The other good choice would be Ubuntu. It has a very easy install, as does Fedora.
The good thing about Fedora is that adding and removing packages (e.g. programs or Applications) is quite easy using ‘rpm’ or ‘yum’