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Low Resource Distro and Window Manager for Kids?

Posted by Cliff on from the finding-a-better-place-for-your-low-end-machine dept.

Philljd asks: "Computers 4 Kids is an organization run by the IT &amp ;CS department of Wollongong University in Australia that picks up computers from the local area, installs Linux on them and gives them to needy kids. We want to know what Slashdot readers think would be the best choice of distribution and window manager for an average system spec of a Pentium 100, given that the kids are around 10-13."

1 of 51 comments (clear)

  1. Debian + Blackbox/FVWM/OLVWM by adelayde · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sounds like a cool project, nice one!

    Debian's a good bet as it installs with a very small footprint and you can work on a good custom build with just what you want. Once perfected, it's easy to get the packages list file of one machine and install packages on another from it. It's excellent for network installs and security updates, nice and stable, not cutting edge (which is good in this case), albeit a little more tricky to learn - but once you have, it, even dselect, is very easy to maintain.

    Working in a community wireless project, I've installed builds of it on old recycled Pentiums on I find that either Blackbox, or even the old FVWM or OpenLook (still very good window managers) are the ones to go for, stay away from KDE and GNOME, they're monstrously big in both disc space and RAM terms.