Re: Debian on an old PC

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote:

> > On Wed, 2005-01-05 at 14:54 +0100, Vegard Lundby Rekaa wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > I need some advice. Is debian fit for a Pentium 100MHz PC with 16MB RAM
> > > and approx 4Gb harddisk? Are there anyone who has experience with such a
> > > slow machine running debian (or any other linux dist)?
> > >      
> > Depends on what software you decide to install on it.
> >
> > What do you want to do with the box?
> >
> >    
> With this box I am trying to convince my father that linux is an excellent
> replacement for windows98se for writing textdocuments and maybe some
> scientific documents. He needs a machine with a simple gui, openoffice.org
> and some other simple programs.  For the window-manager I had xfce in
> mind, which is as I have understood, the easiest to lern of the small
> wm's.
>  
Absolutely not. The box will work, but it won't convince your father 
that Linux is an excellent replacement for Windows98se for the tasks 
mentioned. It might work if you drop the openoffice.org, and use 
something lighter weight, like Abiword or vim, and teX might be better 
suited to "scientific documents", but he'll be frustrated by the 
learning curve. If you want to convince him that Linux is a good 
replacement for Windows _as a workstation_, you need more horsepower.


--
Kent West
westk@acu.edu