Which distro should I run on my old computer?

I'm sorry for posting another 'which distro is best' kind of question, but I wasn't finding much help on the web.

Here's my thing. Recently, a friend of mine gave me an old computer of his because I didn't have one. This computer is running Windows 95, and I'd like to try Linux. I need a distro that will work decently with this older computer:

• 150 MHz Intel Pentium processor
• 1.2 GB hard drive
• 16 MB RAM, upgradeable to 128 MB
• 28K modem
• 8X CD-ROM drive

Now, I know that upgrading this computer would help, but I'm not in a finacial position to do too much. I'd really like to know if there's a version of Linux that won't be too bothered by an old computer. I'll be extremely happy if my computer after getting Linux will do the following:

• word processing
• C++ programming
• web browsing and e-mail
• AIM

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Also, please let me know how much time I should schedule to install Linux. Thank you.

on the last part, I'd say between an hour and two hours, including the format and partition.

You can try to use Slackware, it's a little bit advanced, but sure not as heavy as Mandrake or Redhat. Also, you can try gentoo, or even an BSD.

Vber, I know that those are some of the major distributions of Linux, but I need to know which one will run best on my older machine. I've heard that Slackware is very difficult to use, so I think I'll stay away from that if possible. Please let me know the pros/cons of the ones you mentioned.

How about Suse? Slack based with an easier installer. Just don't use a heavy wm.

Not too sure about the requirements though as I've never used Suse. BTW, contrary to popular belief, you can download Suse, it just isn't too easy.

The pro of slack, is one of the distros that you can install using Floppy (zip-slack), it's sure not heavy (if you install just neccessary). Remember, even if you install slack, and you start to install all the packages from the installation, your pc will blown down. The only thing it's a kinda bad in Slack is hard comparing to other distros.

About gentoo, you can download the minidisk (16MB) and from this disk install gentoo, but how? in the installation you'll install the internet and JUST download the packages that YOU want.

About BSD I don't know too much, I can say it's very stable, once installed it's easier to use him, and to install packages it's easy, because the ports. Look some BSD distros, OpenBSD, NetBSD, FreeBSD. I don't know a lot about their differences, ask vVv.

>>How about SuSE?
Well, If he know's how to install it well, not installing all the packages, that's ok, but I sill think that installing minimal, slack is better.