Which version should we use on an old machine?

[inode0]

On 8/3/06, Rick Stevens <rstevens at vitalstream.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 2006-08-03 at 12:36 -0400, Carl Reynolds wrote:
> > Do you have any suggestions of which version would be good for him to
> > start with?
>
> Well, for the most part, Fedora and any fairly recent Red Hat is out of
> the question.  It needs far more memory than he's got.  With 32MB, you
> really pretty much in trouble with almost anything based on a 2.6
> kernel.
>
> Your best bet is probably Tiny Linux (http://tiny.seul.org/en/).

I currently run slackware (fairly current version) on a libretto 50CT
which IIRC is a P75 with 32MB of memory. It is a 2.4 kernel but runs
quite nicely. If linux isn't required NetBSD also runs well on the
same machine.

For your amusement I tried to get some form of Red Hat on a similar
libretto, this one a P120 I think with only 16M of memory. Working
backwards success occured with 7.3. Now it is a portable serial
console. :)

John