[LBo] Problem with finding the right distro

[Micheal Bauerle]

I use Fedora core on some older machines and have just started using the 
fedora core 7 live cd and the only problem I found with that is trying 
it with machines with an Nvidia video card. Other then that it works 
fine on 2 old machines of mine.

Mike


Allen wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'm trying to install any distro that is complete enough for an 
> after school program run for the housing project kids at the gym 
> nearby. I got 8 old PCs donated which were running W2K but the 
> guy who runs the program doesn't have the skill to keep them up.
>
> My idea is that with the right distro he can just pop a live CD 
> in and do a fresh install when they bomb, which they will given 
> that the kids have no exposure to computers and range in age from 
> 5 up to about 13.
>
> I've tried a bunch of distros and had miserable results so far. 
> The boxes are AMD K6 - 2+/270MHz with 256 Megs of ram.
>
> Knoppix 3.81 runs fine as a live distro, but is old and cranky 
> for an install. I don't know enough to update the newer apps and 
> make a new distro package at this point.
>
> Knoppix 5.1 just hangs and won't boot as a live CD.
>
> PCLinuxOS 2007 just black boxes.
>
> Xubuntu 7.04, which I'm running on an old P3 just fine, hangs in 
> the boot process and never sees the mouse.
>
> Simply Mephis runs fine as a live CD, it installed and ran fine, 
> but when I attempt to login on a reboot I get an error message:
> ------------
> "There was an error setting up inter process communications for KDE.
>
> Could not read network connection list.
>
> /root/.DCOPserver_Potrero Hill Study 1_0
>
> Please check that the "dcopserver" program is running."
> -------------
> When I click on the "OK" button it goes back to a cold start, 
> checks the memory, etc. I don't know the install command to 
> override the "silent" option so I can't see the boot process.
>
> The machines are old, 2001, and slow, but they do run W2K just 
> fine on 128 megs of ram, so I'm puzzled why I can't get a Linux 
> distro to work.
>
> Does anyone have a clue for me, or can you suggest a distro that 
> will work as a live CD and then do a clean install?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Allen
>
>
>
>
>