My grandparents own an old computer that is currently in the kids' playroom for all their grandchildren to play on. Thing is, it has Win 98 and has no games. And it runs like a snail.

I want to get a distro on there that will be able to run smoothly and still be able to play games. I have tried Damn Small Linux, it just doesn't seem logical enough for the kids to be able to use it.

I understand that I shouldn't use Gnome or KDE. I've done some research, but I can't find anything that hits the nail on the head. Most of the stuff I'm finding is articles on how to make X Terminal, or how to make a jukebox out of"that old PC".

Preferably, it should be able to run games like Pacman clones, Tetris clones, etc. Basically, the kinds of games that are simple and do not require a load of power and that kids will love.

Also, I do not live near my grandparents, so I will not be able to service the computer a lot. The distro should be install once, then never install again. I have an uncle that is OS X literate, and is a programmer, but I don't want him to have to do to much.

Oh, and I'd prefer that passwords are not required. For example, I want one "admin"account, with password, and one "Kids" account with no password.

I think that's it!

You could try Puppy Linux. Its small, (64 megs) but better then DSL. They try to make it as Windows Like as possible(it has the windows menu bar, task bar, etc.). It looks pretty decent and from what I've read it works well.

That looks good, except that installing it seems complicated and long-winded.
I like the fact that it looks like windows, though.

If there's an easier way to install it, can someone point it out to me?

The install cant be that bad. I'll install it in Virtual PC and try to get back on to tell you how it turned out. Some of these Linux distros are so small, you can fit them on a USB device! So why install it to the HD? Just pop it on a USB drive and you can run it in qemu from any PC!

Ok I have some possible bad news for you. It seems when I ran Puppy with 32 megs of ram, I got some modprobe error. When I ran it with 128, it ran fine. Hmm. You may want to upgrade your RAM. Remember, this is a Virtual PC. Yours is phyiscal. It may be different on yours. Linux distros act different on different machines. I'll install it and let you know how it comes out. I think I know why its doing this. I'm sure it will work for you. I'll give you install imstructions. Just make sure you have a Windows 98 Boot Floppy(or another boot floppy that has the format command on it).

I am not trying to be a smart-alec but if I were you and I wanted a functional box for my grandparents and kids I would bump the ram up to 128, buy 98Lite, remove a lot of the windows garbage and have a nice little game box. Sure you can install a linux distro but it isn't going to be a pleasant experience for someone who doesn't want to experiment.

Win98 should at least have 64 megs. But 128 is even better. I had a 450mhz machine once and it ran Windows XP! Now my computer is alot better and has 768 megs....which is nothing today really. Anyway, why waste your time with Win98? Its old, outdated, and bah, who cares about 98lite.

Well man, I cant get it to work with 32 megs. I get
kmod: failed to exec /sbin/modprobe -s -k binfmt-0000 errno = 8

that flashes infinitely and i have no idea why. If you are still daring, and want to try it, format the HD, when you boot from the CD, type 1, hit enter, and install it. I have no idea how it will turn out, it may work for you or may not. But just upgrade your damn RAM.

I really don't have the funding to get more RAM.

I'd prefer something with an installer, graphical or not. I don't want to follow some instructions that might or might not work (I don't mean oyu, Tuxman8898, I mean the actual instructions from the site).


What do you guys think of Vector Linux?

Check the reviews for it in the Review section. Here is a direct link to the Vector Review Page.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...cat.php/cat/32

Thanks. I think I'll use that.

I had a windows 98 box with 32mb ram, it is ok if it's offline. I am quite sure that the pc would be taken over if it's connected to internet.

Install additional programs under DSL may works. there is a text based tetris that work fine, however, I don't know if there are suitable pacman

I know it is possible to installadditional programs under DSL, I just don't like how it is set up. It comes with tetris and pacman, those were just ideas.
I'm actually looking into Vector Linux now.