Linux/other OS on old system

[darktiger]

I have a old dell laptop that I found. PII 300mhz with 256meg. What OS should I install on this laptop, I think this is just going to be a mp3 player for the garage. Any suggestions

[digital_exhaust]

Ubuntu. Download a live cd and try it.
http://cdimage.ubuntulinux.org/daily-live/current/

[Bones]

Damn Small Linux (http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/) would work here. It is light enough for an older machine like that, and the installation includes XMMS for playing music.

[Codegen]

I agree with the Damn Small Linux.

Light and small, so it should run fine. I'd suggest Gentoo, as you can get what you want without much trouble, but it's heavy on the HD (#) and hard to install if you want it done right. DSL is more appropriate for this situation.

When I had Gentoo 2006.0 w/ fluxbox running on my Celeron 466 w/192MB RAM, it ran fairly decent.

[Monkey34]

D.Small will run on anything. I've got it on a pentium 90, and a pentium 150. ;)

[Steve01S4]

Ubuntu might be a bit slow on that cpu, but you should have enough memory. Give it a try, and if it's too sluggish, maybe try Xubuntu. XFCE is a bit lighter than gnome, and should run fine. I've used DSL before, and while it works great, it's probably a bit too minimalist for most people.