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..And as for Linux users, many slackware and gentoo afficionados routinely run nearly 10 year old hardware without concern.

Having recently given up with Debian, I've been installing pclinuxos on hardware this age, so far with no nasty surprises. This is a stopgap solution before the big switch to *BSD, though I'll maintain a couple of dual-boot boxes.
The reason I settled on this Distro, out of a number of tests it was the only one which worked flawlessly first time on a couple of the more 'recalcitrant' motherboards that inhabit several of my systems. Much as I'm emotionally attached to Slackware (first distro way back in '93 and all that), even it failed on these buggers (mostly network driver issues, but also performance issues on PATA/SATA), I currently need something that'll work across 10-15 different hardware configurations without any faffing around as I currently don't have the time to fix edge cases. PCLinuxOS works for me, others, YMMV.

I used Mandrake/Mandriva from 2000 to around 2013. As far as I know, there are at least three "forks":

Mageia (which I use now: I personally think it's great, and a big improvement on Mandriva): http://www.mageia.org/en/

PCLinuxOS: never used it, so can't comment on what it's like: don't know if this is classed as a true "fork": http://www.pclinuxos.com/

OpenMandriva: again, never used it, so can't comment, and again, not sure if this is a "fork" as such: https://www.openmandriva.org/e...

Try Mageia: you may well find you like it!

http://pclinuxos.com/ Pclinuxos is the distro you are looking for, no systemd and the head honcho is Texstar, the dude who did the extra repo with the cool stuff for Mandrake back in the day (as it was).

Your mention of caching reminded me of this:
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=113754.0

"In a majority of web browsers, the size of the browser history and document cache is capped in one way or another: for example, if you have not visited facebook.com for a couple of weeks, any record of this will eventually disappear down the memory hole.

This is not the case for Chrome: the browser keeps all the cached information indefinitely; perhaps this is driven by some hypothetical assumptions about browsing performance, and perhaps it simply is driven by the desire to collect more information to provide you with more relevant ads. Whatever the reason, the outcome is simple: over time, cache lookups get progressively more expensive; some of this is unavoidable, and some may be made worse by a faulty hash map implementation in infinite_cache.cc."

That sounds Chrome specific to me.

Certainly I haven't noticed any cache oddities in Firefox, which I tend to leave running for weeks at a time.

And, well, multiprocess has its own problems too, it seems. This was making the rounds a few months ago.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/forum/index.php?topic=113754.0

PclinuxOS.. or Puppy linux are the best and easiest for the newbie to linux. support is good and also something new to try..... http://www.pclinuxos.com/ Enjoy, Jim Douglass ACØE Garden City, Kansas ac0e@arrl.net

Okay. Once, when distro hopping to find a system that would install onto a very old PC, I stumbled onto PCLinuxOS. Where others had failed to even install (Ubuntu, Vector, RedHat) this distro installed sweetly, loaded quickly and, much to my amazement, found all the crusty hardware on the POS MOBO that I was reviving in a case mod. (The reason is that the MOBO was installed into the case mod in a customized way. Easier to upgrade the OS than swap the MOBO.) Anyway, I still run this distro on the case mod (an old Russian radio used as a music server). PCLinux has since gone through a decline and rebirth (its repositories tanked a few years back). In recent years it has seen a very substantive revival.

It is now enjoying a solid base with good community support. And is now # 10 on Distrowatch. I recently read a review (sorry, cannot find it) wherein the reviewer expressed mild surprise that this distro was as good as it was. It is good for a Windows user IMHO because it tends to use Windows-like conventions for the GUI. Also the GUI is surprisingly powerful for managing all kinds of settings. Nice for a user who is not comfortable with a terminal program. I confess that it is not pretty to look at out of the box, but it does everything I want it to do on my funky music server.

I recommend it. It looks good and just works out of the box. http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Well, you could go to PC Linux OS and download the e17 iso. Load it up on a VM and test it out.

See what you think of PcLinux. It's built on Debian, so it's not too "fringey". Here are some screenshots. It compares nicely to the Windows XP User Interface, but not so closely as to be confused with Windows. The descriptions of programs are fairly easy for newbies to understand, and even the front end for synaptic should make it pretty simple for them to add on programs if they want to.

After having to work on customer's Atom netbooks I just can't see why folks like the things. Yeah they're cheap, but so is an old P3 laptop which would frankly give a better experience than the Atom. I swear running an Atom based netbook side by side with my old 1.1Ghz Celeron the decade old Celeron felt snappier than the Atom. And the Nettops are even worse. For the same money I could build a nice Sempron or Athlon that with cool & Quiet wouldn't use much more than the atom and more to the point wouldn't want to make me pull my hair out.

As for your Gateway LT3103u here is some nice benchmarks you may be interested in reading. From the looks of it if I get a netbook I will want an AMD Neo based one. And since AMD has opened up the code I'm sure it won't be long before the AMD netbooks will have good support in Linux. I can't blame you for switching early though, as I wouldn't wish Vista Home Basic on my worst enemy...eeeew!

Question: Have you tried any other distros besides Ubuntu on it? Because I always seemed to get better performance off of PCLinuxOS or Xandros Business on laptops over Ubuntu, probably because of Ubuntu always being bleeding edge. And with PCLinuxOS and their MiniME it is easy to have a custom OS for your Netbook. They not only have the usual Gnome and KDE, but also LXDE(great for laptops IMHO) XFCE and E-17. You might want to give one of them a spin, just to see if it runs better on your gear.

What is the point of doing this?

Actually, I was thinking of adding bandwidth throttling to certain parts of a subnet. This info is exacly what you need when you don't know where to start (for me at least).

Shit wifi performace is a standard Linux 'feature'

Com on now, switch distro's. How long did you research? Oh wait, your friend said "here, this is the distro for you..."? Try http://www.pclinuxos.com/, or you could just accept that the US government has outlawed the OEM's of wi-fi from open sourcing the drivers. (some clueless dumbshit thought it would keep hackers from destroying infrastructure) This means we have to "wrap" or reverse engineer - so yeah, the drivers of most suck. Even though you were OT.

The upside to this (if there is to be one) is that most people can die in their sleep in a fire. Smoke inhalation can kill you without you waking up. Let's all hope he never awoke.

On the utter downside, we all seem to be losing bright minds. We lost Hans Reiser, Rick752, PCLinuxOS lost N1PTT (Robert Green) just to name a few more.

It just goes to show you how fragile life really is. Some chose to celebrate it with us other geeks and share some code and what not. I thank you all that do!

Shitty year for us all I guess?

The Ripper Gang is pleased to announce the final public ISO release of PCLinuxOS 2009.1. This release features kernel 2.6.26.8.tex3, KDE 3.5.10, Open Office 3.0, Firefox 3.0.7, Thunderbird 2.0.0.14, Ktorrent, Frostwire, Amarok, Flash, Java JRE, Compiz-Fusion 3D and much more. We decided to use kde3-5-10 as our default desktop as the we could not achieve a similar functionality from kde4. We will however offer kde4 as an alternative desktop environment available from the repo once we stabilize it.

That alphabet soup doesn't really inspire at all. Now, I actually know that I don't want to use Gentoo, but the first thing from the site makes it seem tempting:

We produce Gentoo Linux, a special flavor of Linux that can be automatically optimized and customized for just about any application or need. Extreme performance, configurability and a top-notch user and developer community are all hallmarks of the Gentoo experience. To learn more, read our about page.

From a A google search of the forums and a thread on the PCLOS forum it would seem that they are also waiting out the storm before getting their toes wet...

Please do not judge Linux by Ubuntu. I have NEVER had more trouble getting the basics to "just work" as I had under Ubuntu. If you want it to "just work" and have Crossover built in for your Windows Apps, Try Xandros(free trial here). If you want it to "just work" and don't want to spend any money,try PCLinuxOS or Mandriva Free. I know this will probably kill my karma, but IMHO any of the above would be better for switching someone from Windows than Ubuntu. For all the hype about Ubuntu, I've never had more pain trying to get everything running from any other OS, except maybe Fedora 4(shudder).

Amen to that! A wiki should not replace a good configuration tool. I've used YAST in SuSe, Mandrivas tool are pretty good too. But for me the best little setup has got to be PcLinuxOS it has the same configuration tools as Mandriva , but uses Synaptic to download software. And there are a ton of packages available. You never need to install a new version, it is completely upgradeable via synaptic. And the packages are thoroughly tested and just work. Its a live CD so you know it will work before you install it. It really is impressive for a small distribution and it looks great too. It doesn't have a company behind but it does have a community of volunteers.

As far as editing graphics settings, it's all done through the PCC (PCLinuxOS Control Center). nVidia driver? Download & install through synaptic (package manager). It's been the top listing on distrowatch now for the last 3 months.

It's only been a couple of months, but I have only gone to the terminal because I wanted to, not because of some configuration issue.

For Linux, right now probably Ubuntu or one of the other 3 or 4 most popular distributions. There are Live CDs and even online guides to help a new user choose.

PCLinuxOS has got to be the easiest-to-install distro I have ever used. Detected & set up my internal wireless card both while running the LiveCD or when it's installed to the hard drive. For someone looking to try it out, it's worth a shot. I likes it, and that's what matters to me.

Try PCLinuxOS . I've been using it for a little while now (3 weeks) and have only used a command prompt to ping IP addresses.

Try PCLinuxOS. I've been using it for a little while now (3 weeks) and have only used a command prompt to ping IP addresses.

I like Suse. I've used it for years. I use OpenSuse and hope it will keep itself clear of that but I'm looking for alternatives. Ubuntu has a chance but anything that puts GNOME first is crap. I don't like Mono or the rest of Miguel's M$ fan-boyism. I don't want M$ crap in my life and haven't had it there for years.

"I have a dream! I have a dream, that one day, Linux users will be more then 50% of the people who use computers
I have a dream that people will not use Linux as a user-friendly OS, but actually use it's command-line, and learn how to use it to improve their performance."

You'd better start studying up on eugenics if you ever want to see THAT dream realized.

If you want more than 50% of the population to use linux (or bsd) without the massive eugenics program in place necessary for them to revel in the command line, it is going to have to be dumbed down pretty hard core.

PCLOS is a pretty good start.
http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Here is the distrowatch page hit ranking:
Last 3 months: 2
Last 6 months: 3
2006: 8
2005: 13

Just to give some comparison, Ubuntu was still number 1 in 2005, as it is today. But provided Texstar doesn't get run over by a bus any time soon, I would be totally unsurprised if PCLOS overtakes Ubuntu in popularity within a year or two.

The userbase for GNU/Linux is the largest in all the Open Source OSes. Developers are shooting for the biggest audience. *BSD is certainly second in userbase numbers. Both appear in multiple variations to suit the needs of niche users. But, they are not monolithic in the many thousands of viable applications. The applications tend to be fast and light in the code, because they share support applications (ex: spellchecker is shared by 26 Office and editor, browser, programs). Open Source is code done right, from the first line through the full release it is inspected, detected, and bad parts rejected, by millions of developers, coders, users. Hey, it works for me, and for all of the Eastbrook Elementary kids, who prefer http://pclinuxos.com/ that you could run, so you would see how good FREEdom can be!

LiveCDrom Distros: All my school kids start with http://pclinuxos.com/ and it's 5500 programs. Out the Box solution. I use it. On at least a dozen of my systems, (8 of my systems are Mac OS9 and OS X). On many of my dozens of older machines, http://knopper.net/knoppix rules, also! Damn Small Linux is great for the really oldies, plus, for the absolute newest ones! Firewall/router is http://ipcop.org/ I keep a single M$ XP Pro machine around, but, rarely spin it up. Maintenance (security, 7 protector programs, it wears out harddrives, prematurely!) isn't worth my time. Maybe if I was a "PC gamer". But, I do play some games on GNU/Linux. Operating systems are tools to make the machine do work. I choose those that do the particular job best. Play, and learn, then choose! It is about absolute freedom and ownership of MY DATA!

Well I hope their website is going to be released soon as well. All I get from your URL http://www.pclinuxos.com/ is a redirect to http://rubens.hmdnsgroup.com/suspended.page/ where it says that the page is not available.

Yes, unfortunately, it appears there website has gone offline due to technical problems. It should be back soon. It was still online when I posted the link.

Well I hope their website is going to be released soon as well. All I get from your URL http://www.pclinuxos.com/ is a redirect to http://rubens.hmdnsgroup.com/suspended.page/ where it says that the page is not available.

Personally, I'm a great fan of PCLinuxOS. Its hardware recognition beats even Ubuntu in my experience. Programmes and drivers are easily installed using a graphical user interface (Synaptic), the package repositories are great and very complete. The "PCLinuxOS control center" is a user-friendly graphical system administration tool that beats the Windows ones sideways to hell and back. The PCLinuxOS community is extremely friendly and helpful. Should you find a programme missing from the repositories (although that rarely happens), ask on the forum, and often, the maintainers will add it for you. By default, it comes with KDE, but GNOME/Xfce/etc. are available to download.

The only major downside I can think of is that the default theme looks a bit ugly, but that's easily fixed!

Also, PCLinuxOS .94 should be released soon, which should make the distro better than ever!

YMMV, of course, but that's my opinion.

This almost made me wet myself when I laughed.

I try over and over and over and over to install linux and actually be productive with it. And I can't. Heck - even google does not make their tools for linux. The only reason I use windows is because I can be productive in it. That is the only reason I use any OS. And I want to be productive without have to do builds, worry about packages, worry about dependencies. I want to have applications to use to be productive with. And that is missing and has been missing and will be missing for a LONG time.

Begone, troll!

I use Linux. When I want to install an application, I open Synaptic, type in the name of the programme I want, click install, done. If I want to install the drivers for my nVidia card, I open Synaptic, search for the driver, click install, done. It hasn't failed me in years, and *never* with my current distro. No worrying about packages, dependencies, and without have [sic] to do builds. And to me, KDE is already a far, far more usable desktop environment than the Windows one. I use PCLinuxOS, but it should be just about the same with any modern, up-to-date distro.

Oh, and if you are having trouble controlling your bladder, you may want to look into getting adult diapers.

"Older machine" covers a lot of ground. ME-stake could have come on anything from about a 266 MHz machine with 64 MB of RAM to a 800 MHz or so with 256 MB. I'd have very different recommendations depending upon which end of the spectrum the machine fell. First of all, I'd suggest upgrading the memory to at least 128 MB to run a modern full-sized distro.

For a really lower end box I'd suggest a Slackware-based distribution with XFCE like Vectorlinux or Zenwalk. Slackware itself is remarkable fast on older hardware. I have a 400 MHz/128 MB machine on the back porch running KDE on 10.2 with no problem, and while it isn't exactly zippy, it works fine (and I won't lose any sleep if the neighborhood kids decide they need the machine more than I do). But Slack requires quite a bit of time and some experience with Linux to set up (when will the mouse wheel work out of the box without editing xorg.conf?) Though I haven't used it much, PC-BSD also seemed adequate running KDE on an older box (128 MB), as well, and isn't as fiddly as Slack.

For a machine with a little more pop I think Freespire would be fine. Xandros free addition is a little dated (2004), but would also work well for someone with Windows experience. It's version of KDE is ancient and doesn't have tabs, but I think it would be more intuitive for first time Linux users. PCLinuxOS is easy to set up and comes with MPlayer configured to play Windows formats without the need for win32-codecs.

A lot of the pain of setting up a desktop Linux box is to set it up to deal with proprietary formats that you are likely to encounter on the net, things like Flash, Realplayer, various codecs, Java, DVDs, etc. Many distros have been actually removing proprietary stuff from their default installs (for instance, libdvdcss is no longer part of PCLinuxOS). So any distro that has tools available to easily add that stuff might make your life easier. EasyUbuntu and Automatix automate all that stuff for Ubuntu/Kubuntu/Xubuntu and Mepis (Automatix), so that makes those distros very appealing. There is something similar available for Debian Etch and I suspect other projects like them are in the works for other major distros. (Anyone know?)

Bearing this in mind, I might suggest Xubuntu, the XFCE version of Ubuntu. It will run on 128 MB machines and the proprietary multimedia stuff is easy to add with those scripts. Plus, it has a very clean, simply interface that a new user would be less likely to find confusing. You can install from the liveCD "Desktop" edition if you have 192 MB of RAM or more or use the "Alternate CD" installation disc with 128 MB. I haven't tried it on a slow machine, but it is very snappy on my lappy.

I'm a Linux junkie and have been for the last 9 years or so, I hate Windows enough that I'd qualify as a Slashdot submitter. That being said, I think if I was forced into a situation where I was on a box that was permanently offline I'd be running Windows.

I have no idea what your primary uses of a PC are, myself I love to dabble in various tech areas. Learn a new scripting language, maybe try my hand at 3d modelling, play around with CMS next week, etc. Linux tends to be a very dry OS when you lose internet, you can't play games (not many great ones at least) and there's only so long you can use man/info pages as your primary source of system information before you shoot yourself. Add to that the fact that, as this thread discusses, Linux is generally ill-suited for out-of-the-box multimedia.

If I was determined to use offline Linux, I'd look into remastering a PCLinuxOS MiniMe release. There's instructions on the wiki and a lot of discussion about it on the forums.

Note: I run PCL but despite mentioning it twice this discussion, I'm not affiliated with it in any way (nor have I donated yet... sorry texstar).

Check out Ubuntu, Mepis, and PCLinuxOS. All of those are easy to use and one of those should give you the right mix of hardware support.

I don't know why Dell is partnering on this. They've had dkms for a while now, and it sounds like it does pretty much the same thing. I've used it in PCLinuxOS for about a year now for loading NVidia drivers without needing to compile anything, and it works fine.

For a true Linux beginner, I'd reccommend PCLinuxOS. http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Good luck, and have phun!

I was on a quest to find a Linux Distro that could be used by a person with limited computing skills. I wanted something that after running the original install CD, had all the hardware and major pieces of software installed and configured correctly. I was tired of having to install my video card drivers or Sun's JRE. I tried Debian and Ubuntu and a couple other distro's, and then discovered PCLinuxOS. This, my friends, is the friendliest distribution out there. Installation was a breeze. All the software you might need is pre-installed. Its packages are up-to-date and there is still a dev team working on the project. Additionally, it has a LiveCD, so you can try it out on your own computer without screwing up your current install. If you like it, you can install the OS directly from the running LiveCD! Pretty slick. You knew that after all this time there had to be at least one distro thats getting it right, and PCLinuxOS is it. http://www.pclinuxos.com/

PCLinuxOS is the most stable and up-to-date Linux distribution out there IMHO. http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Why bother when there's already PCLinuxOS? texstar does very good work...