Need Linux on old comp. Need bsnl and torrent.

[adithyagenius]

My system config is
Pentium 3 702Mhz
2*64 MB SD RAM
Mercury 810i motherboard with 2 old USB ports
Onboard 810i graphics card
onboard ac97 compliant sound card
ps/2 Mercury keyboard
20GB Seagate IDE hard disk
17" Samtron monitor
56x Acer CD-ROM drive
Floppy drive
I can get a mouse and its not a problem.

I am planning to move to hostel and I will not have net for downloading large files. I will keep this old computer of mine for downloading. I can visit my house once or twice a week.
1. I want a linux distro which will work well on this computer. Only purpose is downloading through torrents using BSNL. It should support browsing, pen drives and if possible external hard disks.
2. It doesnt have LAN card and I will need to connect D-Link 502-T ADSL router through USB. My dataone connection is 256kbps unlimited. Windows drivers are easy but I am worried if linux can support USB connection to ADSL router.
3. Windows ME works well with the router but the FAT32 filesystems limits the file size to 4 GB. I want the linux distro to use a filesystem which supports upto 8 GB files atleast.
4. The distro needs to support a torrent program with GUI and disk caching. I dont want my hard disk to die.

I am mainly worried about detection of my ADSL router via USB.

[QwertyManiac]

USB support for that router is just impossible. Get a 200 Rs Ethernet Card and you can use BSNL flawlessly.

Torrent program - Try Deluge, Azureus (Java, kind of heavy ..), R-Torrent, or run uTorrent via Wine.

As for the distro, I guess you could install some Slackware based one with EXT3 as the Filesystem. All distributions support USB Disks, External HDDs and have a browser included by default for both the GUI and the CLI.

[cynosure]

@aditya: I am using Zenwalk core 4.6.1 + KDE 3.5.7 (Only some selected packages or my PC would start crawling ) on my PC which is:
P3 1.0GHz
2x64 MB SD RAM
Intel 810i Mobo + gfx card
onboard sound card
20GB Quantum Fireball IDE HDD
15" VDU
Liteon DVD burner
Sony CD burner

The kernel is latest so there wont be any problem with the drivers (on such an old PC). I did had a problem with my local LAN card as the drivers only supported 2.4 kernel.
But I used ndiswrappr and my card is doing fine.
I use Ktorrent, possibly the best torrent cleint for Linx. I dont know what's this disk caching!!

The ADSL modem with USB wont be a problem. I used it in this distro but switched over to LAN as I needed the USB cable of modem for my printer.
Hope this helps.

[adithyagenius]

^^
Your system config is similiar to mine. BTW which ADSL modem were you using through USB?
Can you please check whether ktorrent supports disk caching by checking preferences/options? I heard that ktorrent can keep 10mb-40mb of pieces in RAM to prevent frequent hard disk access. But I also heard that the ktorrent does this only for downloading. It waits for 10 mb to be downloaded to ram and then it writes on hard disk. But for uploading/seeding it does not keep pieces being uploaded in RAM and frequently reads the HDD. My HDD is 6.5 years old and on its last legs. I want it to survive as long as possible. I tried ktorrent.org but the website provides very little info about its features.

[praka123]

usb support for dsl modem are feeble(and i believe usb is unstable,cmprd to pppoe).there are some projects for supporting few chipsets.
for eg:eagleusb,eciadsl etc
reg support for old pc's.there is some debian project for this(forgot the name)
and if ur a little bend on getting a good soltn,you can install gentoo or debian without gui,and later select some less resource hungry window managers like ratpoison etc

[adithyagenius]

Originally Posted by praka123

usb support for dsl modem are feeble(and i believe usb is unstable,cmprd to pppoe).there are some projects for supporting few chipsets.
for eg:eagleusb,eciadsl etc
reg support for old pc's.there is some debian project for this(forgot the name)
and if ur a little bend on getting a good soltn,you can install gentoo or debian without gui,and later select some less resource hungry window managers like ratpoison etc

I will need GUI because I will need to instruct my mother over phone to operate my computer. She gets overwhelmed by anything to do with computers ... so GUI is necessary.
Can you suggest a LAN card ( preferably 1000/100 or 1000/100/10 ethernet) easily available in India which is fully supported by most linux OSes and windows? Please tell me the price if you know.
I also want to know if its possible to setup direct PC to PC connection with a Vista Home Premium Laptop using a crossover ethernet cable and transfer files.

[QwertyManiac]

Get a Realtek based 8139 NIC. Zebronics sells them @ 180 here. It works out of the box both on Windows and Linux.

However there's a fake 'Silan Tech' Realtek card out there, be careful to ensure it isn't that kind of a crap card.

[praka123]

^^Yes.beware of some Intex lan cards they are fake cards

[adithyagenius]

Anyone tried pc to pc connection using crossover ethernet cable between linux comp and vista comp?

[aditya.shevade]

^^ You won't need crosscable, use the internet cable which came with the router. If you have the router with the 2 PCs connected to it then just share the files on Vista, start both PCs and then, connect to the Vista PC using connect to server option in Linux.... Dunno about accessing the Linux system from Vista.....

[adithyagenius]

Originally Posted by aditya.shevade

^^ You won't need crosscable, use the internet cable which came with the router. If you have the router with the 2 PCs connected to it then just share the files on Vista, start both PCs and then, connect to the Vista PC using connect to server option in Linux.... Dunno about accessing the Linux system from Vista.....

I cant connect 2 PC to a router because I dont have a router and only a single LAN cable. I have crossover ethernet cable though.

[aditya.shevade]

^^ You said you have the D-Link 502 ADSL router......

[adithyagenius]

Originally Posted by aditya.shevade

^^ You said you have the D-Link 502 ADSL router......

Thats an ADSL modem/router which can be used to connect to net as modem or a router. Its not a standard router because it has only 1 ethernet socket and 1 USB socket.

[cynosure]

Originally Posted by adithyagenius

^^
Your system config is similiar to mine. BTW which ADSL modem were you using through USB?
Can you please check whether ktorrent supports disk caching by checking preferences/options? I heard that ktorrent can keep 10mb-40mb of pieces in RAM to prevent frequent hard disk access. But I also heard that the ktorrent does this only for downloading. It waits for 10 mb to be downloaded to ram and then it writes on hard disk. But for uploading/seeding it does not keep pieces being uploaded in RAM and frequently reads the HDD. My HDD is 6.5 years old and on its last legs. I want it to survive as long as possible. I tried ktorrent.org but the website provides very little info about its features.

I use intex 10/100 Mbps Ethernet Card and Beetel 220BX ADSL modem. The drivers of ethernet were available only for kernel 2.4 & 2.5 so I used ndiswrapper to install the WinXP drivers in the purane distros.
But the latest kernel should be able to detect the modem awa the ethernet card.
AFAIK Ktorrent downloads and writes the data simultaneously. This is what I think.
Sorry I cant check it now coz WIN2K screwed up my Linux partitions and I have to install the distro again. You can search google for this funcionality of ktorrent.

[praka123]

I found an answer as with OP.

AntiX is an installable live CD that features a modern kernel, recent X server, and lighter applications for use on computers with as little as 64MB RAM. I tried it, and liked what I found.

http://www.linux.com/feature/115203

[rocket357]

Originally Posted by adithyagenius

I heard that ktorrent can keep 10mb-40mb of pieces in RAM to prevent frequent hard disk access.

Ummm, not to burst any bubbles, but if you're using ext3, you're using a *journaled* filesystem, meaning frequent read/writes to your hard drive.

You could always use ext2, but if something should happen (power outage, etc...) then the recovery could take a bit.