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I'm looking at getting my old Pentium 3 back up and running with windows 98 and a Linux distro in dual boot. What distro would be the best one to use? It has a;Jetway 994AN-L motherboard, pentium 3 667MHZ (2xslot 1 celerons spare and a socket 370 500MHz celeron), 288MB RAM, Stealth 3 S540 32MB, 80GB HDD in master, 85MB in slave, 1 floppy disk drive and a cd rewritable drive. The main things I'm looking for is performance, being able to install standard linux programs (.deb/.rpm based) and great compatibility with various PCI/ISA cards.
The expansion cards currently in use (the bottom card is a ISA game port/midi/sound card):

post-155575-0-84357700-1417938199_thumb.

           .;ldkO0000Okdl;.                michael@SUSE-BlackBox
        .;d00xl:^''''''^:ok00d;.            OS: openSUSE 20260405
      .d00l'                'o00d.          Kernel: x86_64 Linux 6.19.11-1-default
    .d0K^'  Okxoc;:,.          ^O0d.        Uptime: 2d 21h 52m
   .OVVAK0kOKKKKKKKKKKOxo:,      lKO.       Packages: 6556
  ,0VVAKKKKKKKKKKKKK0P^,,,^dx:    ;00,      Shell: bash 5.3.9
 .OVVAKKKKKKKKKKKKKk'.oOPPb.'0k.   cKO.     Resolution: 3840x1080
 :KVAKKKKKKKKKKKKKK: kKx..dd lKd   'OK:     DE: KDE
 lKlKKKKKKKKKOx0KKKd ^0KKKO' kKKc   lKl     WM: KWin
 lKlKKKKKKKKKK;.;oOKx,..^..;kKKK0.  lKl     GTK Theme: Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
 :KAlKKKKKKKKK0o;...^cdxxOK0O/^^'  .0K:     Icon Theme: breeze-dark
  kKAVKKKKKKKKKKKK0x;,,......,;od  lKP      Disk: 13T / 22T (60%)
  '0KAVKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK00KKOo^  c00'      CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core @ 16x 4.55295GHz
   'kKAVOxddxkOO00000Okxoc;''   .dKV'       GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (radeonsi, navi22, ACO, DRM 3.64, 6.19.11-1-default)
     l0Ko.                    .c00l'        RAM: 13127MiB / 48094MiB
      'l0Kk:.              .;xK0l'          
         'lkK0xc;:,,,,:;odO0kl'             
             '^:ldxkkkkxdl:^'    

 

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https://linustechtips.com/topic/265392-best-linux-distro-for-old-pc/
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 I would say Lubuntu, there may be some lighter distros but it's a good choice. Ubuntu is widely supported and easy to use, and Lubuntu is Ubuntu with a desktop enviroment that is less intensive for older pcs :)

// irenebb-pc v5 // [] Intel i5-9400F [] Radeon VII Lisa Su Edition [] 24GB Crucial Ballistix [] Acer ED323QUR (1440p/144hz) []

 

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Thanks. I tried Lubuntu and it seemed to work well, just need to get the linux drivers now and I should have the beginnings of a decent media center/ DOS gaming rig.

 

Edit: Windows 98 decided to stop working, so I'm using windows xp. It turns out that the computer is over double the recommended requirements and works well.

           .;ldkO0000Okdl;.                michael@SUSE-BlackBox
        .;d00xl:^''''''^:ok00d;.            OS: openSUSE 20260405
      .d00l'                'o00d.          Kernel: x86_64 Linux 6.19.11-1-default
    .d0K^'  Okxoc;:,.          ^O0d.        Uptime: 2d 21h 52m
   .OVVAK0kOKKKKKKKKKKOxo:,      lKO.       Packages: 6556
  ,0VVAKKKKKKKKKKKKK0P^,,,^dx:    ;00,      Shell: bash 5.3.9
 .OVVAKKKKKKKKKKKKKk'.oOPPb.'0k.   cKO.     Resolution: 3840x1080
 :KVAKKKKKKKKKKKKKK: kKx..dd lKd   'OK:     DE: KDE
 lKlKKKKKKKKKOx0KKKd ^0KKKO' kKKc   lKl     WM: KWin
 lKlKKKKKKKKKK;.;oOKx,..^..;kKKK0.  lKl     GTK Theme: Breeze-Dark [GTK2], Breeze [GTK3]
 :KAlKKKKKKKKK0o;...^cdxxOK0O/^^'  .0K:     Icon Theme: breeze-dark
  kKAVKKKKKKKKKKKK0x;,,......,;od  lKP      Disk: 13T / 22T (60%)
  '0KAVKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK00KKOo^  c00'      CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X3D 8-Core @ 16x 4.55295GHz
   'kKAVOxddxkOO00000Okxoc;''   .dKV'       GPU: AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT (radeonsi, navi22, ACO, DRM 3.64, 6.19.11-1-default)
     l0Ko.                    .c00l'        RAM: 13127MiB / 48094MiB
      'l0Kk:.              .;xK0l'          
         'lkK0xc;:,,,,:;odO0kl'             
             '^:ldxkkkkxdl:^'    

 

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