tlug: Aptiva 520 - 486 DX

[Tony Laszlo <laszlo@example.com>]

All, 

ISSHO (Tokyo-based non-profit) is about to 
receive a badly needed donation of a computer.  
It is an IBM Aptiva 520 with a 486 DX CPU (100Mhz), 
540M hard disk and 32M of ram - I hear it really 
zips along :) (I hope it has a CD-ROM; we'll see 
when it arrives). The group will use it primarily as 
a simple server that connects a couple of other 
boxes to the Internet via PPP, to run some mail/netnews 
related scripts and to store data (the last two points are 
the more important). 

I think the group is going to need more hard disk space 
for this machine. I'm wondering if it would it be worth it 
to replace the hard disk with a larger one (and perhaps 
running a more recent distribution that needs close 
to 1G) or better to install what can be installed on the present 
HD and connect up a separate disk either internal or external? 

Should I need to, can I easily find hard drives and CD-ROM 
drives in Akihabara that will fit this machine (or are the 
parts non-standard)? 

I'm wondering what distribution of Linux (preferably Japanese 
localized) could be installed and run well on that machine? 
I have had one recommendation for RedHat 4.2 with PJE. 

Does anyone have any success (or horror stories) of running 
Linux on a similar machine? 

Thanks!



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