got 69 old pcs for 2€

[Zammy-Sam]

Lucky me, huh? Got 69 486DX4 100mhz - Pentium 133mhz pcs with graphic cards, network cards and ram for 2€. I am going to get a bunch of keyboards and 14inch crt screens for them and sell them at a price of 49€. This offer goes to ppl living close to me so I can offer them a free delivery and setup. If further options are desired - such as internet connection or networking - I thought of charging a wage of 10€ for every 15min.
Now, what I want to know is, which os would be the best for all these. I was thinking of a linux distribution that is for free and not wasting too much space. Any proposals which would be the best for these old systems and easiest to use?
Thanks!

[nixgeek]

I use Slackware, but it's not for the faint of heart. If you are new to Linux, don't bother...you'll wish they were Macs instead. However, Slack is much cleaner than most of the commercial distros and pretty snappy. Plus with slackpkg, you can keep the machines updated with packages from the slackware-current repository.

There's also Debian, though I would probably wait for Debian until "sarge" (the next release that will become stable) comes out in September. It will include a much better installer than what existed before in Debian Linux.

You could also go FreeBSD. I tried that briefly and was impressed not only with the installer but with how nice it ran on my older machine (PII-400).

As for easiest to install and use, any of the commercial Linux distros would do fine. SuSE is pretty good, at least in the x86 world. You could try Fedora, but it's pretty bloated and buggy from what I've heard. Or give Mandrake 10 a shot.

Of course, 69 machines would make a nice Beowulf cluster...

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Howabout Windows ME? To be truthful, if you install any kind of Linux on those boxes and offer your tech support skills, one of two situations is bound to arise:

1) The people completely stop using the computer, since Linux is foreign and difficult for a novice to understand. Yes, it's getting better, and your clients may think they're getting the hang of it, but they'll get frustrated to the point of quitting completely soon.

2) You'll be bombarded with tech support calls three times an hour. That's the nature of Linux: it likes to have a knowledgable UNIX user commanding it, not grandma down the street.

Windows ME has Windows Update for automatic updates... and it's Windows! They can actually go out and purchase simple software for it! Plus there's a wealth of Windows software all over the internet!

I know you're looking for low-cost, high-ROI solutions, and Linux is perfect since it's free, but think of the frustration and time wasted AFTER you've sold the computers and the customers want you to explain how to use Linux. You can't teach someone Linux in any reasonable amount of time. Plus, your customers will think you purposefully installed a foreign, difficult to learn OS on their computer so that they'd call you with tech support questions and you can charge them more.

Good luck, and let us know what you end up doing!

[scruffy]

I'd suggest NetBSD - simple, clean, lightweight. Depending on the capability of the computer, xfce might be the best desktop environment, for much the same reasons.

[nixgeek]

Originally Posted by ElDiabloConCaca

Howabout Windows ME? To be truthful, if you install any kind of Linux on those boxes and offer your tech support skills, one of two situations is bound to arise:

1) The people completely stop using the computer, since Linux is foreign and difficult for a novice to understand. Yes, it's getting better, and your clients may think they're getting the hang of it, but they'll get frustrated to the point of quitting completely soon.

2) You'll be bombarded with tech support calls three times an hour. That's the nature of Linux: it likes to have a knowledgable UNIX user commanding it, not grandma down the street.

Windows ME has Windows Update for automatic updates... and it's Windows! They can actually go out and purchase simple software for it! Plus there's a wealth of Windows software all over the internet!

I know you're looking for low-cost, high-ROI solutions, and Linux is perfect since it's free, but think of the frustration and time wasted AFTER you've sold the computers and the customers want you to explain how to use Linux. You can't teach someone Linux in any reasonable amount of time. Plus, your customers will think you purposefully installed a foreign, difficult to learn OS on their computer so that they'd call you with tech support questions and you can charge them more.

Good luck, and let us know what you end up doing!

I would have to disagree with your assessment that Linux would be too difficult for average people to use. Case in point:

I decided to test something out on my son and see how he would react to a computer that had Linux on it. I even decided to use Slackware for the test and made sure everything was configured for him to just go and play. The only thing I really needed to teach him was to click on the menu and select the dinosaur (Mozilla browser) to get to Noggin (which is his homepage). He can do this all by himself. Did I mention that my son is about to turn 3 in August 27th?

If you look at Gnome and KDE, you'll notice that most of the apps listed in their menus are subdivided by category: Internet, Games, Multimedia, etc. Does that sound difficult to you?? I think it's pretty straightforward. Both even go as far as to not just give the name of the app, but give a short description of what it does (like "Word Processor" next to KWord or AbiWord). I have yet to see something like this in either the Mac OS or Windows (and Windows has a Start Menu).

I believe that if people are open to the experience, they will realize that it's not harder than using Windows or Mac OS. Most commercial distros nowadays don't need to have people going into the command shell to get things done. I believe that if Zammy is straightforward with his customers and gives them a quick rundown of where everything is, they will be just fine. Believe you me, Windows nor Mac OS beat Linux in terms of usability. I get calls from people using Windows, and even my father who has a G5 with Panther on it, asking for help with even the simplest things.

I understand that some people are used to things a certain way, but if you want that, get a new machine with Windows XP or a Mac with Panther. These are older machines that would even struggle with Windows 98, let alone Windows ME (which is one of the worst versions of Windows out there). I believe that most open-source operating systems would excel in this area since coders have been able to take advantage of these procs to the best of their abilities.

I am planning on giving my parents an old PII-233 with SuSE for Internet and word processing when my Dad is busy working on his G5. Let's hope it will be as successful as my son's experience.

[scruffy]

I'm not convinced that a P-133, much less a 486-100, would be able to run KDE or Gnome to any sort of satisfactory level. They have just as much eye candy as Windows these days.

That's why I suggested xfce as a desktop environment - complete enough to be a full environment, but lightweight enough that it has a fighting chance of being usable on such old hardware. IceWM is even more lightweight, but probably wouldn't be complete enough for most people.

[ElDiabloConCaca]

How much is 2€, anyway, in US Dollars? What the heck is a "€," anyway?!

Sorry, Zammy, I've been wondering where you're from for a while now...

[chevy]

2€ is 2 Euro, or $2.5

Zammy's profile says he is from Germany.