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OS recommendations for Pent.III 128MB laptop

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MilesAhead:
APT is easy to use.  That's what's so good about it. I've been away from Linux for a long time.  I'll leave nuts & bolts advice to those still steeped in it.  But one thing that may be handy is to read up a bit on bash shell. You can do scripting with it.  But aside from complicated scripts you can also create an alias for a complicated command.  An alias is just a place holder or macro that's translated by the shell into what you assign it.

This page shows a few examples:

http://linuxreviews.org/quicktips/alias/

40hz:
Are ya with me?
-Edvard (March 03, 2011, 04:04 PM)
--- End quote ---

We are ready to rock Mr. E!  ;D

Shred time!

Edvard:
@40Hz
 ;D Awesome!  :Thmbsup:

@Tomos
Yes, I knew you were talking about writing, as in novels, poems and short stories, not pointers, variables and API calls.  ;D

Since AbiWord is installed by default, you should be good to go with that.
I've used AW successfully on Windows when OpenOffice was too much (slow computer, dialup internet) and WordPad just wasn't enough.
It has it's own native format, but can also write .doc files that I've never had a problem with Office users reading.

From what I remember, Puppy doesn't use the APT system, but it does have it's own nice little package manager that doesn't have to involve any arcane special commands or anything, although you can do that if you want.
http://www.puppylinux.com/development/package-management.htm

Most all Linuces are very similar under the hood, and anything that needs to be done in a command-line terminal should work no matter where you are.
It's the User Interface that is most variable across distributions, and documentation ranges from nonexistent to way-too-technical.
Unfortunately, both extremes are the most common; fortunately for YOU, Puppy has a very comprehensive HOWTO section accessible from the Start menu, a pretty active forum, and the Puppylinux.com FAQ can usually point you in the right direction.
http://www.puppylinux.com/faq.htm
http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/

Have fun!

tomos:


thanks Edvard :up:

MilesAhead:
btw in case anyone else has a Pentium III and wants to try Mandrake 9.1 I found the iso images are still available from the source:

http://distrib-coffee.ipsl.jussieu.fr/pub/linux/MandrivaLinux/official/iso/9.1/ppc/

For contemporary machines you can get the OneCD here:

http://www.mandriva.com/en/downloads/one/

edit: if you are tempted to try Mandrake I would go with the 3 iso images. Mainly because if you download applications you may run into updated versions that require newer kernels or some other mismatch.  The CD images should have all the apps you need and fit the kernel that's installed with Mandrake 9.1.

Easiest may be to boot a Live CD and try some of the word processors and editors.  The thing that put me off most about Linux was the lack of editors I liked that had Windows like key bindings.  It's too distracting concentrating on how to use the editor instead of what you are typing in the thing.  Then again, if you go with total immersion you may pick it up quickly. I scared myself by almost starting to understand the vi mind set.

I tried all the editors and word processors I could find that were supposed to be "Windows like" and didn't like any of 'em.  The kylix IDE editor came closest since the key bindings and the feel were nearly identical to Delphi Windows IDE.  But if you're going to go with only Linux OS might as well get your feet wet with vi, emacs and the whole bunch.

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