Most suitable Linux Distribution

[Casanova]

Hi,

I have been a long time user of Windows and want to try out Linux to see what the hype's about. I've got an old computer (Pentium 2, 128MB RAM and a 4MB Video card). And the hard drive's only 10GB.

I currently have Windows 2000 installed on the hard drive. I want to keep this and partition the hard drive so I can install Linux along with Windows 2000.

Can people please make some reccomendations on which Linux distribution would be the best. I prefer a stable operating system with good compatibality with software and especially hardware(almost all hardware in the computer's at least 5 years old).

If you post a recommendation could you please let me know the goods and the bads about the distribution?

Thanks to anyone who helps.

[SensoVision]

hi Casanova! it's nice to hear that more people getting interested in Linux

I've got an old computer (Pentium 2, 128MB RAM and a 4MB Video card). And the hard drive's only 10GB.

I wouldn't call it that old at least I've had similar PC with exception that it has 256mb RAM and 80Gb harddrive running first Ubuntu(just to show people what is Linux and later I've installed them Debian).

So if you willing to install Linux to hard drive and have no experience in  dealing with *nix based OSs I would recommend you trying Ubuntu, it's have GUI for many operation and based on Debian utilizing it's powerful DPKG(Debian package management) system which make installing software and dealing with dependencies a bit easier than on RPM based(Red Hat based Linux systems). Also Ubuntu sends free disks from their site so you may just order one and try out.
Of course you can choose Debian itself than you got a bit more harder installation process but as reward you'll be able to use biggest repositories of pre-packaged software(this means that you'll not have to compile each program, but install it from CD/DVD or Internet with one click on it's name).

If you not sure if you wish to install Linux I would suggest you try either Knoppix(maybe not best choice for slow PCs but it really got all of kind of software and could also help you re-partition your drive if you don't have necessary software for this) your or Slax(this one may be better choice for slower systems as it doesn't have so much software on it and just got basic functionality).

Can people please make some reccomendations on which Linux distribution would be the best. I prefer a stable operating system with good compatibality with software and especially hardware(almost all hardware in the computer's at least 5 years old).

5 year old hardware is actually advantage as usually it means that all these devices got it's drivers already and bugs was probably discovered and eliminated.
Also there no real difference in supported hardware by different distributions, as all of them are running Kernel(which contain drivers) from www.kernel.org so therefore you may just upgrade your kernel to newer one and got latest drivers for your OS.

[donecweb]

My suggestion would be to try distros that come as a live CD. This means you will be able to try the Linux distro without installing it and determine if it will work with your hardware.

The ones I know of are MEPIS, UBUNTU, KUBUNTU, and FREESPIRE. I just found this site which may help.
FrozenTech's LiveCD List 
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php