Re: FN-FORUM: 'best' linux distro for windows networks

date posted 13th January 2004 15:36

> Err, not wanting to start a flame-war here but I wondered who has
> experiences with cheap lightweight alternatives to xp pro for two old
> crappy machines. Must have decent office apps (ie openoffice..)
>
> Basically 160 quid x 2 seems like a lot of money to upgrade to xp pro
> when the machines aren't worth much more than that (PII with 64MB and
> a few gig HDD)

PII with 64MB? Yikes. Not a lot.

If they're 100MHz frontside bus machines, it'd be worth maxing out their
RAM. Some old PC100 SDRAM won't cost much; £15 for 128MB is typical.

This means PII of >= 350MHZ. Less than that, don't bother.

> Must be able to do samba-esque file-sharing, security etc, and pref.
> full login-integration with a new Windows Small Business Server 2003
> and its domain (to be). Is this even possible, bearing in mind only
> basic Linux skills?

Jeez. You don't ask for much.

Nothing modern will work well on a PII with 64MB. Take it from me, I have
reviewed *all* the current distros for the mainstream UK PC magazines.

For what you want, Xandros is best. It does NT domain log-on etc. but not,
I think, against a WS2K3 ActiveDirectory.

But Xandros wants the same level of hardware as XP: I think they recommend
at least an 800MHz CPU and *MIN* 128MB RAM, and they mean it. Consider
256MB the min for anything useful and 384MB+ for the best performance the
machine can give. Mind you, 3 128MB DIMMs will do that, at £45 per PC.

Other than Xandros, nothing does what you want. If you can forgo Domain
log on, then look at LindowsOS from lindows.com and Lycoris Desktop/LX
from lycoris.org.

Only Lycoris is free, FWIW.

On such old kit, forget about any mainline modern distro such as Red Hat,
Fedora, Mandrake or SuSE.

--
Liam Proven • http://lproven.livejournal.com