[Luckey]

I am fixing a friends computer. Its a Compaq Presario 5360 and was running win98. The hard drive seems to have crashed and I don't know where to get another copy of Win98 nor do I want to spent the money on it. So I am going to put Linux on it instead. But I am not sure which distro to go with. I want a distro that runs on little resources and is VERY user friendly. They don't know alot about computers beside basic functions.

If I should do something else or if you have an answer or idea. Please speak up! Thanks!

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I've tried Mandrake and Suse and they were both large and slow. I've heard that Fedora Core 4 and some versions of Slackware are lighter and faster. One of my next projects will be to try them. I think one reason Linux is slow is because they don't seem to use much or any kind of registry, when contains many shortcuts in memory to the system files in Windows.

[Tyger]

I've tried Mandrake and Suse and they were both large and slow. I've heard that Fedora Core 4 and some versions of Slackware are lighter and faster. One of my next projects will be to try them. I think one reason Linux is slow is because they don't seem to use much or any kind of registry, when contains many shortcuts in memory to the system files in Windows.

[Scooped]

I think one reason Linux is slow is because they don't seem to use much or any kind of registry, when contains many shortcuts in memory to the system files in Windows.

I disagree. That depends on the distro you used, and how many services are running. If you're running a fast, light, and highly configurable distro like gentoo or slackware, then it really depends on how well you configure it. Although you're right the about the registry, linux is as slow as you make it.

I've tried Mandrake and Suse and they were both large and slow.

Yep. Mandrake, SuSe, redhat, and fedora core are all big and slow. I suggest going with something like gentoo or slackware (As mentioned above). Of course, it might be difficult to learn on either of the two if you have no prior experience.

And if the resources are absolutly terrible, go with |)amn Small Linux.

Good luck!

[Dragon]

one of the things to take into consideration is how big the hdd is. if its a fairly new computer with like a 10 or 20 gig hdd, you can go wiht just about any distro.

if you only have a 5 or 10 gig hdd, then you want a light one. I use Ubuntu, has a small footprint, and completely configured as I do it only takes up about 1.5 gig of hdd space. and the support is fairly decent, you can get live support on IRC and they have free forum support too.