Which edition of linux to download

[bootneck02]

I have been asked to get some of our village primary school PC's ready for disposal if possible for sale. I have already reformated some RM all in one PC's and downloaded Mint 12 ready so that can be sold. I now have other RM PC's which are a lot older and only have a CD player on them so am reduced to a operating system of 700mb or less is there anything out there in Linux that will do the job. The reason is that there is information on the drives about children so cannot be aloud to be removed from the school without the drives being wiped and a new OS installed. The proceeds sale of the PC is going towards the purchase of the new PC sweet and my time doing this is for free for the school.

 

[muckshifter]

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

http://lubuntu.net/

http://puppylinux.org/main/Overview and Getting Started.htm


http://distrowatch.com/

 

[floppybootstomp]

Mint 12 KDE has been the easiest one for me to understand so far.

Distrowatch has a link.

 

[EvanDavis]

Mint, I find it the easiest one to use and it does what it says on the tin


http://linuxmint.com/

 

[Abarbarian]

This will give you a ultra clean hdd.

http://www.dban.org/

Darik's Boot and Nuke ("DBAN") is a self-contained boot disk designed for consumer use. It securely wipes the hard disks of most computers. DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect,

This has lots of handy tools.Will wipe your drive. Set up partitions before an install(much quicker than using a distros installer).

http://partedmagic.com/doku.php?id=start

Features
Format internal and external hard drives. Move, copy, create, delete, expand & shrink hard drive partitions. Clone your hard drive, to create a full backup. Test hard drives for impending failure. Test memory for bad sectors. Benchmark your computer for a performance rating. Securely erase your entire hard drive, wiping it clean from all data. Gives access to non-booting systems allowing you to rescue important data. Runs from the CD, no install required.

This is easy to set up and use with pretty good documentation. An it will fly on an older pc.

http://sblinux.org/antix/index.html

antiX is a fast, lightweight and easy to install linux live CD distribution based on Debian Testing for Intel-AMD x86 compatible systems. antiX offers users the "antiX Magic" in an environment suitable for old computers. So don't throw away that old computer yet! The goal of antiX is to provide a light, but fully functional and flexible free operating system for both newcomers and experienced users of Linux. It should run on most computers, ranging from 64MB old PII 266 systems with pre-configured 128MB swap to the latest powerful boxes. 128MB RAM is recommended minimum for antiX. The installer needs minimum 2.2GB hard disk size. antiX can also be used as a fast-booting rescue cd.

Salix has pretty good documentation. Should fly along.

http://www.salixos.org/wiki/index.php/Home

There are six editions of Salix; the Xfce, MATE, LXDE, Fluxbox, KDE and Ratpoison editions, each edition featuring the respective desktop environment.
Salix disc images are offered in two different forms:

1. Installation disc image: For the direct installation of the Salix operating system to your hard drive. The installation is text dialog based, but easy to navigate and complete. It is also very fast; a "full" mode installation will take less than 5 minutes on any modern PC. All editions are available for download in both 32bit and 64bit images.
2. Live disc image: Allows you to boot and use Salix directly from a CD or USB drive without needing to install Salix to your hard drive. The live disc image also includes the Salix Live installer, a graphical installer which allows you to install Salix to your hard drive from the live session. Live disc images are available in 32bit and 64bits architectures.

Any of the Puppy's will do. Macpup is a neat fast one.

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyVersion

If the pc's are going on to kids this is well worth a look. Lots of stuff for kids and a full os aswell.
You could give folks a Live cd with each pc or install DoudouLinux to the hdd.

http://www.doudoulinux.org/web/engl...ced-tools/article/installing-doudoulinux.html

Also easy for Dad and Mum!

No need to install DoudouLinux to use it, it can then be carried anywhere, for example, by Granddad and Granny. DoudouLinux is provided full and ready to be used, nothing else to be downloaded, nothing else to be updated and nothing else to be administered. Since version 2010-11 it also natively ships real-time web content filtering to keep our children’s eyes off of “naughty” websites. So at most you will have to adjust your computer sound output and the mouse speed! Moreover, DoudouLinux runs on any PC computer and on Macintosh™ ones made after year 2006, a priori [2].

Have fun

 

[bootneck02]

Thanks for the replies and interest, I did not realise there were so many versions of Linux so will investigate, thanks guys

 

[Urmas]

I did not realise there were so many versions of Linux so will investigate...

GNU/Linux Distribution Timeline

 

[Abarbarian]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Linux_distributions

 

[bootneck02]

Once gang thank you all for your help, links and suggestions they have been very useful and after much research and consideration I am going with Mr Mucks link for Linux Puppy as it is very light and will work well with RAM of only 256mb. So it will be down to the School tomorow and start to download PUPPY on to all those old PC's. Once again thanks for all the help.

 

[Abarbarian]

http://puppylinux.org/wikka/PuppyVersion

Which one did you pick ?

You will fall in love with the pups.

 

[Abarbarian]

You might find this useful.

http://www.brighthub.com/computing/linux/articles/125205.aspx

Installing Puppy Linux

After you have selected the hardware for your Puppy Linux installation, the computer will need preparing. This might mean formatting the hard disk drive on a device that will be running Puppy as the only OS, or creating a new partition on a dual booting computer.
Installation of this OS should be simple and straightforward; most people don’t experience any problems, but if you do there are workarounds that can be used.

There are a lot of very handy tips etc for a newcomer to pups.

 

[EvanDavis]

Mr Boot, we can all give our opinions, but I would go with Abarb and Urmas, they are out resident Linux people. Although when it comes to Mint I have followed FBS

 

[Abarbarian]

Mr Boot, we can all give our opinions, but I would go with Abarb and Urmas, they are out resident Linux people. Although when it comes to Mint I have followed FBS

Kind words and thanks. However I am not anywhere near Urmas's level of expertise in GNU/Linux.

Looks like Puppy has been chosen going by bootneck02's post. I have tried MacPup and Slacko.
Mac pup as it uses the E17 desktop environment which is really slick and fast.
Salcko or Puppy53 as it is based on Salckware and has some very interesting features.

Mint apparently is a very good distro but I have never used it. I am not really interested in any of the buntu's and would rather invest time in Debian or Debian derivatives as all the buntu's are based on it.

Playing with penguins is good fun and a cheap hobby. Happy splashing.

 

[bootneck02]

Well decision made and thank you everyone for the assistance and pointing me in the right direction. I have decided that I will use Lubuntu because it is a 688mb download and will go on a CD, it only requires a low RAM and will run well on 256mb RAM, it is based on Ubuntu and there is much software that will run on it. Once again all for the helpand advice Could one of the administrators please close this thread. Thanks.

 

[muckshifter]

Could one of the administrators please close this thread. Thanks.

we don't normally close threads, unless they being spammed, however, I haven't closed one today, so ...