1 GB of RAM is more than enough for any GNU/Linux distro.

There are special versions of Linux that are aimed at older computers like yours, for example antix or Vector Light. You only need a working CD drive to test or install those. Given the age of your computer I would think that using USB for that is not a viable way.

To use a USB drive make sure your BIOS support booting from USB. If you download Vector make sure you get the live CD. AntiX, Puppy Linux, SliTaz, Lubuntu, Vector Linux are all good systems you can fit them in a CD and they don't require too much memory to run.

To make room in your hard drive for a Linux distribution you need a tool like Gparted which is included in some liveCDs then create a partition with it and install your new distribution there.
Another fun way would be find a second hand hard drive, remove the one with Windows and install Linux in it. If you want to go back to use Windows you could just swap hard drives and presto.

If you still have that other computer you said got mess up you can harvest the hard drive and use it for that purpose. Or if the issues with your other computer is just software issues you can try to bring it back to life with linux.

Good luck to you!

I wish i would have known that when i threw out the 2 computers i had because both of the windows corrupted during a power outage. That was the event that actually made me want to start learning about computers..

Ubuntu is not a good choice for 256M ram.

You need a specialty type distro. You need one made for low resource systems.

A usb is for the most part a real hard drive to modern linux. Some older ones don't treat the usb as such but they are real old.

You could use a usb type distro instead of a live cd or dual boot. You still have the limit of 256M ram. Some of the specialty type and some of the mainsteam distro's can boot either to a "toram" option or a not to ram option.

It just struck me that the first time I used Linux would have been the year in which you were born!


God, I feel SO old!