[Tfug] Machine Rehabilitation

[keith smith]

Take a look at :  http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

Run light enough to power a 486DX with 16MB of Ram

Run fully in RAM with as little as 128MB (you will be amazed at how fast your computer can be!)


"hharden71 at netzero.net" <hharden71 at netzero.net> wrote: I want to try and breathe new life into a machine I have been given.
An old IBM Aptiva
450 Mhz AMD
128 Megs ram 
(I don't know if this can be upgraded-2 memory slots ea/w 64m currently)
(PC 100 or 133 memory)
SIS 350 video card (onbaord)
Onboard audio (works /w a live cd I tried out)
ISA 3Com 3C509 10baseT ethernet card 
(haven't tried this piece of hardware - but it is so old I expect only minimal trouble - it is ISA after all)
PCI 56k modem
8-10 gig HDD
cdrom
3.5" floppy
This seems like it would fit in fairly nicely with the "Grandma Millie" 
discussions I read.  Especially since, once it was set up I wouldn't really 
want to change it. 
I was thinking of trying to turn it into an "internet cruiser".
I have reasonable expectations of what I want out of the system.
E-mail
Web Browsing
Audio Jukebox
Along with word processing & spreadsheet office functions, 
Image display/editing, 
and a little p2p/torrents.  
There is also the desire to be able to hook it up to a home network/broadband at some point.

Now for my quandry.
I will probably have to modify the heck out of somebody's distro.
If I could get some advice on software alternatives I would appreciate it.
The majority of my experience is running Simply Mepis 6.0.  
It is a Debian/Ubuntu varient that uses KDE.
I am looking to use something lighter for this machine.  
Perhaps Fluxbox, or Xfce4 as primary and ICWM for backup.  
Pros/Cons for each potential primary when compared to the other.
As you might expect many of the apps I use an am familliar with are KDE.
I am wondering what alternatives you might suggest for the following apps keeping in mind the system they will be going onto.  I may be passing the system on to my daughter once I have it finished, so the less CLI the better (for now at least).
Ktorrent
Mozilla Firefox - I use Konqueror. which I find to be much more stable, faster, easier on the system resources and less prone to crashing. (now  I may be wrong about the resources - but not the rest.)
e-mail client (I would like an e-mail client that is stable, pretty, easy to import/export to/from.  I did not find Thunderbird to be "the one".)
Kpf - KDE Personal File Server [pannel applet] (I found it very handy to be able to have a repository of files for my friends.)
Kaffine
Kpdf
Kprintfax
Kfax (fax viewer)
klamav (antivirus) - Is this becoming more necessary with the advent of more linux kernel based machines?
Kwikdisk (gui & pannel applet - mount/unmount util - this sort of thing is very handy when you have multiple drives or partitions.)
file manager - I am used to using Konqueror for this function.
Ksysguard (GUI performance manager)
XMMS
Things I don't plan to change my mind about:
Open Office for my spreadsheets & word processing.
       - The MS office interoperability I've seen in the stand alone products is not up to my needs. I have friends and family who have not yet seen the open source light. 
I plan to include Java 1.5.  I use a dial-up connection and a java-based propriatary dialer.

Are there any packages to enact parental controls?

-Henry
_______________________________________________
Tucson Free Unix Group - tfug at tfug.org
Subscription Options:
http://www.tfug.org/mailman/listinfo/tfug_tfug.org




------------------------
Keith Smith
(480) 584-4772
PHP Programming


       
---------------------------------
Looking for a deal? Find great prices on flights and hotels with Yahoo! FareChase.