Which is a good, safe and reliable distro Linux?

[cgkeller]

I bought a second hand computer with AMD-K-6 processor, 15 GB Harddrive,128 MB of RAM and Win98 and I would like to add a Linux OS (Dual boot with WIN98), either Mandrake, Debian, Suse or Slackware.

Now, I heard some horror stories about Mandrake 10.0, being difficult to install, unstable and unreliable. (See LinuxISrg, "Mandrake 10.0 broke my hard disk").

I need your advice: Which Distro should I load, which is easy to install, stable and reliable. With time, I would like to dump WIN98 and their blue screen of death. I understand that, basically, Linux is much more stable than WIN98, but is difficult to install.

What do you suggest I should do?

Thank you very much for your input.

Charles.

 

[sedj]

If you search through posts in the last month or two this question has been asked loads of times ... here is one thread :

thread54-890137

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Free Database Connection Pooling Software

http://www.primrose.org.uk

 

[stefanwagner]

and think about additional RAM.

seeking a job as java-programmer in Berlin:

http://home.arcor.de/hirnstrom/bewerbung

 

[unixfreak]

Why more RAM? Debian runs fine on 32MB.

If security and reliability is what you're after, go with Debian.

Cheers

 

[ericbrunson]

Not if you want to run a GUI. If you want a bare bones system run run a server or a firewall *may* be enough,but start Gnome or KDE and system will grind to a halt.

 

[PStoneMan]

In my humble opinion, Linux is no more difficult to install than windows. Yes you do have to create your initial partitions, but most, if not all, linux distros come with a wizard to handle it for you.

As for which one to use? I am very happy and pleased with Tao Linux (

http://taolinux.org/).

This is a free distro built on Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3. It seems very stable.

 

[cgkeller]

Memo to PStoneMan:
Thank you for your input re. Tao Linux. I'm certainly will look at it, it sounds interesting, since it is based on RH Enterprise Linux 3.

Charles.