I have just been given an old computer and I thought I could use it to learn Linux on
It has 32 mb ram,� 4 gb HD,� and 166 cpu
Any ideas on what os I could use to learn
Debian installs well on almost everything, and it isn't "cut down" ... to get a small system you just don't install anything when offered.
After a few minutes you say to yourself "oh, does it have apache?" and the answer will be "no" ... so you get a root shell and say "apt-get install apache" and it's all done for you ...
(The Gentoo world would say "emerge apache", but your machine won't have the guts to do much compiling. Gentoo has a binary option, rather than a source option ... but I don't know anything about that)
Things you should install early on to have a friendly command-line toolset would be (more suggestions welcome) ;-
apt-get install less sudo pstree tree lsof tcpdump figlet
None of these involve X-windows, but even for those that do, you can install the program (e.g. ethereal, which I'd recommend for exploring networks) and apt will also install the required libraries, but won't actually put an x server on your machine. You then run an X server on your main desktop machine, and log on to the old box, and run the X program ... the display will appear on your desktop machine.
-jim
