[juneau-lug] light Linux for old computer

  • From: Jamie <jamie@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: juneau-lug@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2010 18:48:09 -0900

Some friends have asked me to setup an inexpensive computer for their 
son with internet filtering.  The old state surplus box that had been 
gathering dust might be just the thing for email and web surfing.  It is 
a 800mhz Pent III with 128M - top of line machine (maybe 10 years ago).

So what to put on it?  I tried Knoppix.  The bootable cd version works 
fine, but it gave me video problems with the hd install.  Also it is too 
complicated for their son, who need something pretty simple.

Then I tried LUbuntu (Light Ubuntu) but the install ran all night and it 
was so slow - it was unusable.

On to Puppy Linux.  Installs and runs fast, but uses auto login as 
root.  It looked to be a pain to reconfigure everything to use a 
non-privileged user.

After the basic setup, I was planning to install Squid and Dans Guardian 
for filtering.  But I'm open to other suggestions if anyone knows of 
something better.

I expect their son would also like to play games and there is a GeForce2 
MX400 video card in this box.  Just a few years ago my kids were playing 
video games on this same box.  I just don't remember what it was running 
and its hard disk was re-purposed long ago.

Any suggestions as to what should I install?  What has worked well on 
your old machines?  Thanks!
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