Best Linux distro for a not fast machine

[Azmandius]

Hello all,
It’s a nice feeling entering Linux OS community for the first time, especially because I am on a serious task to switch all computers from my office from commercial OS like Windows XP SP2 to some good Linux distro.
I hope and I am sure I’ll have good and useful time in here.
Now, I would like to mention what exactly I need help with.
I am managing an NGO office with less then 10 quite old machines. And the average computer power is: AMD Athlon 600MHz with 256-512 RAM.
Unfortunately there is no plan to upgrade hardware in the near future, and yet I have to do the switch to Linux for licensing reasons.
Could you Linux gurus advice me what is the best and most user-friendly Linux distro for an Athlon 600MHz machine?
I would like to mention that it would be nice from all those many Linux distros available out there to install a distro that is really compatible with most device drivers and has lots of software available for it, so I will not have to spend the first half of the day installing a printer driver, and the second half trying to find a Linux compatible software for doing some simple tasks.
Thanks you very much in advance and best regards.
Cheers everyone!

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall

[Azmandius]

Originally Posted by grey_1

http://distrowatch.com/table.php?distribution=damnsmall

Thanks for advice.
Damn Small Linux sonds really good.

Originally Posted by Azmandius

Thanks for advice.
Damn Small Linux sonds really good.

I was extremely surprised at what kind of functionality they packed into such a small package. Hope it works for you.

[bacon12]

Slackware is also good on low spec machines.

[Azmandius]

Hi again,
Considering forum info and many articles I have read I have come with a few selected distros.
I would really appreciate if you could help me by pointing me to one of these distros to be installed on machines with Athlon 600MHz CPU with RAM varying from 256 to 512 and HDs from 40 to 80GB.
Here are the distros choose by me:
Xubuntu
Vector Linux
Puppy Linux
Ubuntu 6.06
Slackware 10.2
Fluxbuntu
Which one do you recommend me to use?
Also I would like to use this opportunity for finding what is the best alternative for Microsoft Office (especially Word, Excel, PowerPoint) if using Linux, and does Linux accept lets say Office 2000 at all? I have 10 machines license for Microsoft Office 2000, and was wondering if Linux accept that software?
Thanks again to everyone helping me with this transition.
Regards

[bacon12]

Vector is slackware based and a very nice distro. The forums are good and you can always get help there.

I would prefer xfce over fluxbox, but that is my personal opinion.

As for running Office, I am not sure if it will run under wine, or on a low spec machine.

[krokodil]

Originally Posted by bacon12

Vector is slackware based and a very nice distro. The forums are good and you can always get help there.

I would prefer xfce over fluxbox, but that is my personal opinion.

As for running Office, I am not sure if it will run under wine, or on a low spec machine.

Just turned around and started OO on an Athlon XP 1900+ / 512 MB machine running SUSE 10.1 / KDE 3.5. Less than a minute startup time so if you start it once a day in the morning that might be ok :-) - you might get a cup of coffee during that startup.
I am always wondering how we could survive without GHz cpus, GB main memory and TB disks (and 3D user interfaces like Sun's Looking Glass, compiz, etc). In another time, in another life, I took on responsibility of a lab timesharing system: a PDP11/44 with 256 kB of main memory and 2! 67 MB disks running UNIX SYSTEM III and serving up to 8 people at the same time.

[Azmandius]

Originally Posted by bacon12

As for running Office, I am not sure if it will run under wine, or on a low spec machine.

How exactly are you doing that?

[bacon12]

Its an emultor, and almost ten years in the making! Congrats to version 1.0 to be released soon.

As for running office I did a quick search of the app database and it is not listed. So I am still not sure if it works. Kde's office suit Koffice is a very nice alternative.

http://www.winehq.org/

Originally Posted by Azmandius

How exactly are you doing that?

Whatever distro you use, you need to install wine.
http://www.winehq.org/site/howto

I know Ubuntu and a few others have it in their repositories, which would simplify that.

After wine is set up you can simply rt click on the .exe and choose "open with wine" which should start the installer.

Here's a little "success list" from the site I linked above.
http://appdb.winehq.org/appview.php?appId=31

You may wind up having pretty good luck with this.

[Azmandius]

Thanks for info!