Old notebook needs Linux, but what distro?

[retsaw]

I'd second the recommendation of Puppy for something like this, you can copy the livecd to the hard drive and run it from there if you like (as you can with most live cds).

[nuttron]

I got lucky installing mepis (from cd) on an old compaq 1200 laptop , 700mhz with more ram than yours though ,512 ......recognized everything easy package management......good luck

[markjs]

Moon OS actually works! The only thing that really annoys me is that when I set the wallpaper every time it reboots it forgets?!? Seems like a small and weird thing to bother me but it does....

Anyone?

[LewRockwell]

Absolutely positively...

http://tinycorelinux.com/

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[Megatron X]

So I have this lame old Gateway Solo 5300 with a 900MHz P3 and 256MB RAM. I tried to get 512MB in it but it won't take it, so even Win2K is a dog on it, just barely works at all and too slow for practical use.

I have limited experience with Ubuntu, but I need a distro that will allow it to be a reasonably usable web surfer and for watching simple online videos like YouTube. I also want a free distro, so what should I get? I used this test to figure one out and it told me Open SuSE, but that comes on a DVD and this has no DVD player (CD only) and I don't even think it has USB 2.0 so my external might now work and I also fear it will be much too slow for any standard modern distro.

It is for a lady who learns PC stuff well but is totally new to Linux and just needs it until she gets money in October to get something nicer.

You can install Debian (Stable) without a DE and use apt-get (or aptitude) to install a Window Manager, etc.

[panther3e]

Give antix a try it is made for older hardware. And is based off of mepis.