Perhaps that is why they are considering selling systems with Linux installed.
They really could put together a great system and software package, but that might put M$'s nose further out of joint, lost sale of Vista, probable lost sale of MS Office and other MS software, etc.
Dell installing Linux has been a topic of conversation in the Linux community for several months now. It took me a while to find it again, but here’s an interview with Michael Dell regarding Dell’s Linux philosophy:
How much older? You may have to use an Alternate install cd especially if you have under 256MB of RAM.
The disks are free though so no harm in trying. I have successfully installed Debian on an old PII 350Mhz with 192MB of RAM. Runs good. Bogs down a bit on OO.
I know that for Ubuntu 6.06 the minimum hdd space for a good desktop install was 3gigs with 256MB of RAM.
I suppose you could do a server install which required much less space and then install xfce for a more light weight desktop environment.
These guys here will prob be more knowledgeable about it than me. If it installs with the normal cd I don’t think you will be happy with the speed of the system.