Advice on Linux for 486DX2-60

I was given an 486DX2-60 with 24MB RAM. It's in a slim desktop case...would work real nice as a MP3 player for a home theater.

I want to use it for the following purposes:

Primary Use: I want to put it on my home LAN and use it for a fileserver and file backup server.

Secondary Use: Place it near my home theater and use it to play MP3's. I currently have it loaded with Win95B, but their is no Windows MP3 players that can play MP3 files without skipping on a machine that slow.


Is Linux the way to go to accomplish the above two goals? I've always heard that Linux is more effecient than Windows and will work on old hardware better than Windows. Which distro is geared towards this type of project? I would like to have a GUI since I have little...very little Linux experiance (installed it a couple of times and played with if for a bit). I am currently downloading RedHat9 as we speak...I hope it will do the trick.

Thanks for any advice.


P.S. The search don't work....j/k mods

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TRY TO INSTALL REDHAT ON THAT THING !!!


You'll get old and die just waiting for the installer to load up; RH9 is on par with XP as for the hardware it wants to run on. Trying to install it on that old POS is going to make you hate Linux (if it even lets you install). Modern GUI software will kill that thing, you're going to have to be very careful about what you try running (and KDE & GNOME are out of the question. completely).

As for Linux making you able to play MP3s, Linux, itself, won't do much to make playing them faster but you might find a more efficient or less resource intensive player (like a command-line thing).

Originally posted by ameoba
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, DON'T TRY TO INSTALL REDHAT ON THAT THING !!!

LOL....Ok, thats what I thought. Hehe....

Never had problems running winamp when I had my 486 ohh so long ago. The file sharing and playing of mp3s is going to skip no matter what os you have with those specs. And learning the few commands you need to use mp3s and file sharing will be infintly easier then putting up with a gui.

-Tron

I recommend Vector Linux for old machines. It's based on Slackware but tuned for performance; and is a quite usable, modern distro for older and slower machines.

Thanks guys for all the advice. It took over 9 hours for me to move only 841 mp3s (4.1GB) to the hard drive in the 486....so slow with only PIO Mode 3!

I have decided to try another aproach. I can get my hands on a MicroATX Intel board with a Celeron 400, 128MB PC66 RAM, Onboard RagePro 8MB, and a sound chip. I'm gonna pick up a case at newegg for $48 that will go with my stereo rack and a Radeon 7000 PCI with TV out. All together I should have under a $100 in hardware in it that I dont already own. Probably gonna run Win98 on it since it won't handle NT5 and I don't know jack shit about Linux. I have have a X10 MouseRemote (another reason to use Windows) to handle the controlling of WinAmp and I will also install VNC for the more complex tasks.

It took over 9 hours for my to move only 800 mp3s (4.1GB) to the hard drive in the 486....so slow!

Here is the case I decided on:


bah..nevermind about the pic...VillagePhotos changed their free accounts so you cannot externaly link to them.

Try using this DOS MP3 software which can be found...



HERE