LinuxSA Mailing list archives

  From: Bruce Moffatt <bmoffatt@picknowl.com.au>
  To  : David Lloyd <lloy0076@rebel.net.au>
  Date: Fri, 05 Jan 2001 16:29:53 +1030

Re: Hardware swap-meets

David Lloyd wrote:
> 
> Bruce!
> 
> > I am in the market for some second-hand hard drives, 1 to 2 Mb, must be
> > cheap. This is to get my 12yo son started with Linux. He is about to get
> > a present of an old 486 with a 1Gb windows drive. I would like to give
> > him another drive and some install CDs and turn him loose.
> 
> To put it mildly, Windows - even with a 100MHZ i486 and 64mB of RAM -
> would run rather, well, slowly on that setup, whilst Linux would run
> respectably under console and possibly run fvwm-95 or twm (X windows
> managers) respectably...my point is, why don't you install Linux first
> and make him figure out how to get rid of it if he wants to?

Good point. His lesson will therefore include making the comparison
between Linux and Windows, both running on marginal hardware (by today's
standards). The system will run Win 95 (just), and I am very curious as
to how much he will be able to do with Linux. The system is quite
similar to my original Linux Slackware 96 box of '96 vintage, so I know
it should run quite well with a smallish footprint window manager, as
you suggest. The question really is, which distribution do I throw at a
(very soon to be) 12 yo.

Cheers,

Bruce

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