I'd back Damn Small Linux or Lubuntu. I actually installed Xubuntu in an old Intel Celeron from the Pentium III era for my dad's office as their print server, works beautifully. I just configured CUPS with Samba for Windows networking and it was good to go. I would have had the whole system running command line only but the employees need to access to graphical in case print jobs get stuck or what not so I installed Xubuntu which is quite lightweight. deltatux
Slax was always nice and small. I do agree it's completely past it's use though. Particularly when you can get a Netbook for cheap as chips and can run things better on it.
Last comp if seen with such specs was running windows 95 although 98 will do probaly better. so go with 98 if you able to 95 is just full off bugs probably limited the most
Right, I have had a nightmare with this, tried: Lubuntu - Installer crashes ConnochaetOS (newest version of DeLi Linux) - Errors when copying files Damn Small Linux - Runs from live CD, install to HDD looks a bit long winded and it still loads a settings menu on each boot. As well as having start up problems. My XP disk wouldn't boot in it, even though it was the one I used to put it on originally (reburnt a new disk as well). In the end I found a copy of Win 98 SE which went on fine and it's all working fine now, ready to be traded in tomorrow Thanks for all the help everyone and the recommendations. Appreciate it.
It's often about finding the "right" version when installing these on older machines. Should be easier with a PC, but for an old PPC it can take a while to find the perfect Linux version and revision. As example, my Windtunnels GeForce 4 doesn't like any Ubuntu PPC release beyond 10.04 Live CD, it simply doesn't want to run any higher resolutions on the newer version, even with the correct code copied and pasted to the files. Windows XP is a bit to big for that old PC, Windows 98SE fits much better with the CPU and amount of RAM. So if someone really is going to use it they will get a much better PC experience. I did read that HP is recycling it thou, so wouldn't it have been enough just to slap DOS onto it?
Well it used to have XP on (done by me), but wouldn't take it now. It says they want to check it works, and they format them, but I wanted to send it with an OS with a desktop incase their check it works is basically a boot to desktop. Incidently it starts up in 36 seconds and 10 seconds of that is post. Tempted to try Win 98 on my SSD and see how quick it is haha.
What about "Puppy Linux." Runs well on older hardware, 100mb in size, has a (Live Boot System. Have been watching a few tech videos on Linux lately, and it's shaping up quite nicely.
£30 off for the battery as expected, but apart from that accepted my 15 year old pentium II 233mhz, 64mb ram and 4gb HDD. So £120 trade in (plus £10 to cover postage, we paid £3.99 to post), then £100 cashback, and total cost £285 for an I5 laptop, nice!