A couple of weekends ago we decided it was well past time to get rid of some old computer hardware. I don't consider myself an environmental nut but I must admit I was bothered by the fact that I could pay $3 and dump as much electronic equipment as I wanted in my local landfill. I was previously under the impression that this was against local, state, and federal law but then I am sometimes guilty of listening to media folks who don't know the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day (so check your facts). The bottom line this hardware was taking up room and we were allowed to dump it.

So after pondering this for a week or so and being a long time Linux fan, I made some time to check out a few of the smaller Linux distros. I must say as I write this I am still not sure there is one I would recommend to anyone who has an old 200Mhz computer with 64MB of RAM on it but Vector Linux is installing as I write (I did not say I got rid of everything).

Anyway I was surprised to see Ubuntu boot. The minimal version was not fast enough for me to consider it usuable but it did run. Knoppix loaded just fine (I can't say it has ever failed me and if you don't know about it for rescuing a Windows box among other goodies check it out) but the GUI was extremely sluggish on this old box. Despite it's name and some good reviews, I was not impressed with DSL if one is running a GUI on an old machine. I tested tinylinux which was nice but I think it should default to a smaller window manager.

Well Vector Linux is booting for the first time now. I'll play a while and write more later

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