Which Linux to use

[Tom 'Needs A Hat' Mitchell]

On Sat, May 15, 2004 at 04:58:18PM -0000, Srinivasan S wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I have an old 486 PC with Windoze 95 .. 
...
> rather than throw it away I want to install Linux and give it to my
> daughter for education ...  Can I install Fedora ?  What is the best
> linux to install on a 486 PC/540 MB Hard disk/32 MB RAM ?  All help
> is appreciated Regards Srini

Without additional DRAM and more disk Fedora and other Linux
distributions are not a good fit.  

The FreeBSD project has a tiny distribution but that is bare bones old
style command line Unix for the most part.  One FreeBSD group was
working on a package that ran off the CDROM and only had volatile info
like etc/passwd /tmp $HOME on the disk.  If you are into tinkering
that sounds like fun.  A 700MB CROM fixed FS + 540MB of disk adds up
to enough to be interesting.  The CDROM cannot be written to by a
hacker...  Interesting idea for a firewall.

You said "my daughter for education".  Is she a computer science major
or a six year old.  If she is a six year old leave it running Win95
and hunt for educational software at flea markets or search on the
internet.

Put it behind a firewall.  Expect to reload the disk often.  The entire
540MB disk fits on a CDROM so a reload could be simplified.

-- 
	T o m  M i t c h e l l 
	/dev/null the ultimate in secure storage.