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Originally Posted by #1 Rhapsody  I also will be getting some older PCs as well (a i486 and several Pentiums). Do they make good web servers? I have the 98 install disk but I lost the registration card but I do have the card for my 95 disk. |
With something like GNU/Linux (preferably Debian IMO, or Slackware if you REALLY want to learn GNU/Linux) or any of the free BSD derivatives, it should run just fine. If it's for server purposes, make sure you do a base installation and then install the services that you need. You don't want to give such an old box the extra overhead of X Windows and a desktop environment.
However, if you must install a desktop environment, I recommend XFCE. I did a base installation of Debian on an old AMD K6-300 system with only 64 MB RAM, followed by Xorg, XFCE, and some needed apps (Iceweasel and Pidgin) and I was pleasantly surprised at how usable this old system actually was. Mind you, Web 2.0 sites made Iceweasel crawl, but it should handle light web browsing, IM, and e-mail just fine. Don't even bother with Flash-based sites like YouTube.
Since you are getting multiple PCs, you might also want to tinker around with creating a Beowulf cluster just for kicks and that extra geek factor.
