Which Linux to use

[Madxgraphics]

I have a question.

A good friend is going back to Australia. He has kindly given me his old Dell Optiplex GX 280. P4 2.8GHz / 1Gig RAM . He has removed the HDD and is taken it with him. Not a problem as I have a 40 Gig HDD which I have already fitted.

Now my question is I am going to set it up as another crunching machine. Her's the twist. I would like to use Linux as I don't really want to have to go out and buy XP or Vista just for a cruncher.

The question is what flavour of Linux to use ? I would like the OS to be as small as possible, so that whatever space is left on the drive I can use for storage of photo's. I would also like a Linux distro that is pretty simple to setup and install Boinc Manager on.

Any ideas ? I have had a play with Mint and Ubuntu Satanic, but thats about it. Thanks in advance.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Damn Small Linux springs to mind

Of all the Linux Distros I've tried (and depending on which version I've used) I've had the least frustration with PC Linux OS; Mint and Suse.

 

[Urmas]

A couple of Gigs here or there... that box is "too good" for a mini distro. Ahem...

1. Ubuntu straight or flavored:

Super OS (DVD)
Mint
​

2. Mandriva One

 

[Madxgraphics]

Mint
​

2. Mandriva One

Cheers guys. I have Mint already Urmas. Just downloading Mandriva One now.Abarbarian has mentioned it quite a bit, so I will give that a try. So hopefully tomorrow another machine will be up and crunching..

 

[Abarbarian]

Ahem cough cough, its Mandriva Free I keep going on about.Only a subtle difference but important to some.
Mandy has Boinc in its list of programs to install so it is easy to find and download and it should all work out of the box.

A good alternative is PUPPY LINUX. They have some active Boinc members and they keep the PET up to date(see the link) it was last updated in )ct this year.

http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=32604

 

[neverbeabug]

You can try slax. It's a LiveCD, but it can be installed on HDD.