Light Linux Desktop for older pcs?
I’ve seen a story over at Desktop linux about the release of Turbolite 2005. Which is based on Turbolinux. It’s targeted at older, refurbished hardware. They offer “all the essential functions required for a desktop PC, including a Mozilla Web browser and email client, a Flash player, and streaming multimedia capabilities.”
Minimum requirements are (for a desktop) a Celeron 500 processor, 64 MB memory and 10 GB hard drive with slightly larger specs “recommended” (Celeron 600, 128 MB memory 15GB HD, 256 MB memory if you use “Microsoft Office” (crossover wine ?))
There are a couple of other distributions out there that have targeted older hardware. (Mepislite and Minislack)
All of the efforts are targetted at those that are having to choose what to do with older Windows 98 machines. The switch to linux could be done without a costly hardware upgrade.