8.1.3. Small Linux Distributions for Old Computers
Damn Small Linux - A full featured Live-CD distribution derived from Knoppix, with a very active community. It fits within 50 MB and runs fine on a 486 PC with 16 MB of RAM. Included software: Firefox, xmms, xpdf, Sylpheed, FluxBox WM, Siag, spreadsheet, Ted word processor... Used a lot on USB flashdisks too.
Basic Linux - The lightest distro for old PCs! It just needs 3 MB of RAM and 6 MB of disk. Features: X graphics, window manager, clock, calculator, text based e-mail reader, browser (links), presentations (MagicPoint), network dial-up... Great for using an old PC as an X terminal!
Puppy Linux Fast and light distribution. Works great on 10 year old computers. Actively developed.
DeLi Linux - A Linux distribution for old computers, from 486 to Pentium MMX 166 or so. It's focused on desktop usage. It includes email clients, a graphical Web browser, an office package with word processor and spreadsheet, etc. A full install, including XFree86 and development tools, needs no more than 300 MB of harddisk space.
Small Linux 2 - A distribution which is designed to run on old / low-spec PC computers (386 and 2-3 mb of ram). It consists of two floppy discs one,containing the kernel and the other the root system. Built upon uClibc and Busybox.
MEPISLite - Debian based distribution targeting PCs that used to run Windows 98 (typically 128 MB of RAM, 2 GB of disk space and a 500 MHZ CPU).
Using Gentoo on Old Machines
"Old computers don't have to run old software. Old software does not have it's bugs covered and is bad for security.
Most modern distros will be very sluggish when run on those machines; not because they use new software, but because they expect to be run on new machines and may automatically install large amounts of software. The thrust of Gentoo-on-old-hardware is to obtain a light, minimalist system that runs what you need it to and no more; unlike many proprietary OSes and the "heavier" distros such as Fedora, Gentoo starts very light by default."
Minix - Not a Linux but a UNIX useful for small systems. Minimum requirements: 386 CPU, 8 MB of RAM, 50 MB of disk space.
See Wikipedia for a longer list of small Linux distributions .
* License
