I’m planning on putting together some PCs from lots of spare parts that I have and am planning on selling them at a very low cost (probably sub $100).
I want to keep everything legitimately licensed and because of the pricing (and the fact that I want to push Linux) Windows is not an option.
What is a good distro of Linux that has/does the following:
Can be installed from an image (like a restore disk) in under an hour on any 32 bit PC running a minimum of 500 mhz with a minimum of 256mb of RAM.
Can fit on a minimum of a 20gb hard drive.
Includes Open Office, Mozilla Firefox or Opera (with Flash), music playing and organization software, and something for viewing PDF files.
Will work easily with the largest possible array of hardware, not including WiFi, but does include printers.
Any suggestions? Is this going to be a custom job? I’m not as familiar with Linux as I would like to be.
I’m not able to predict what hardware will be included in each computer. The proceeds from all sales will be initially used to purchase more low-end hardware from ebay and other sources.
Later on, I plan to make this into a non-profit that can solicit donations and give tax write-offs for donated computer hardware.
Though optimization for a slow PC is good, remember that the point is that traditionally non-tech people will be using this. Basically, I’m looking for a turn-key kind of thing. They should be pretty comfortable with the thing after about a week and have a good understanding of the basics after about 6 months.
Somebody outside of Y! Answers mentioned Puppy Linux to me and I’ve heard of Mint Linux as well. Any thoughts?
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