Linux min. system requirements

[hallam2003]

can any one help me on the min. system requirement to run Linux. I probably won't need to actually DO anything with it, just want to learn a little bit more. Trying to find something crappy enought that it will be "free," but also have the ability to run linux. This will be my first time playing with it, so i'm guessing if i screw it up, big deal, good old format command.

Hallam

[Freaked]

Linux will pretty much run on anything. I have ran Mandrake on a 486 with 16 ram. The only thing with Linux is the install can be rather big. I would recommend that you have at least 1.5 gig hard drive, 64 Ram and at least a 200Mz processor. IT should be fine on that. Especially if you are just trying it out.

[CMonster]

I really don't think you can get a true feel for Linux by using an older system with outdated hardware. It is possible to do a minimum install of Linux (a DOS-like command line interface) and run on anything 386+ with 4MB of RAM, 16MB swap space and 50MB of free hard disk space. This will likely leave you frustrated with Linux. You could however look into www.peanutlinux.org (http://www.peanutlinux.org) for a compact yet GUI based Linux for minimum hardware. This could help you get aquainted enough with the OS to feel confident to install a dual boot machine with your current computer.

Linux has evolved in leaps and bounds in the last couple of years and is rich in advanced features, but running on an older machine would be like trying to run Windows 2000 on a 486DX-33 (if that were even possible).

Perhaps the easiest, cheapest, safest, and best way would be to purchase a second hard disk and install Linux on your good machine on the new disk. You could use a Linux boot floppy that you create during install to boot Linux instead of installing the Linux boot manager into the MBR of your current drive, in effect, Linux would not even touch your existing install of Windows.

But be prepared for a learning curve - you did not learn Windows overnight and you certainly will not learn Linux any faster. If you are not familliar with terms such as "MBR" and "boot manager" you should do a lot of homework before installing Linux on your primary machine; not that Linux is problematic -but new users can become confused and do $t#9!d things like check the box that says "Format Windows Partition."

Generally speaking, if you can read you'll have no problem.

edit ~ fix url

[This message has been edited by CMonster (edited 03-22-2001).]