difference between distros

[redss]

I'm a bit confused about different requirements for different distributions. I installed Red Hat 7.2, and the requirements listed 1 GB hard disk space required (with no X!), and 350 MB disk space required for bare minimum. And as I recall, it had higher cpu/ram requirements than I remember hearing about... I had heard that older versions of Linux required only about 40 MB disk space, 8 Megs Ram, and 386 cpu. Why have the minimums increased so much? I thought Linux wasn't like MS windows, where every new version required faster hardware?

Where can I find older distros of Linux? I have some slow computers w/small hard drives I want to put to work!

Also since I had so many problems installing, I was wondering which distro is the least likely to have installation erros (due to things like hardware incompatabilities). I thought RedHat was supposed to be the smoothest.

thanks!

 

[TTFrekie]

Hey - About installation I do not know. But if you need some comparisons of distros have a look at :

http://www.linux.org

http://www.linux.org/dist/index.html

You can still go for the Slackware Distro. Not so fancy as others but very good to install bare minimum.

Frekie

 

[tarn]

There are too many sources of information to list but take a look at

http://www.linuxcentral.com

while your passing.

As for size and spec for install, you can usually install most Linux's as lightweight (with very few "or no" unwanted packages) as you need, the recomendations are usually for a system accepting the default (medium size) install, if you realy wanted you could run Linux from a floppy disk on a 8086 pc and serve up a webpage (though I wouldn't recommend it)or better still build your own lightweight kernel.

It realy boils down to what your requirments are Desktop, File Server, Web Server, Application Server, Firewall, Router, Mail server ....... and so on ....
Good Luck
Laurie.

 

[venkman]

Also, the memory requirements are most often the problem during the install itself, as the os has to load onto a ramdisk. I believe if you do a text install, this will not be as big a problem.

-Venkman