Linux question

I have a spare computer. It's old and I built it from parts. I'm not sure how much ram or anything it has. Currently, I have Windows 2000 installed on it. I was curious about Linux or Ubuntu but don't know anything at all about them. How much hard drive space, ram, etc. do they need? Can they be installed on any machine? Are they compatible with all internet service providers? If I am able to use either one, how do you launch programs? Is it point and click like in windows or is there more to it? Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks.

Ubuntu comes in all shapes and sizes....i have one version that runs on my xbox and is only 10 meg. Very easy to use just go download and install...U will be very happy.

reply to post by Skid Mark


If it was running W2k it will definitely run any kind of linux, Ubuntu and Red Hat/Fedora are one of the more user friendly ones, easy installs. Ubuntu is just a distribution of linux(a version of). The operating system is independent of your internet provider. You only need to have a network adapter or modem in the computer.

The user interface is very much like the windows platforms, so if you know how to operate a windows user interface, you are all set. The internals are another story, but then again, windows has lots of internals and most people don't go under the hood the see what is in it. cheers brother

Thanks for them help. I really didn't want to go through the trouble of downloading it if it wouldn't work.

reply to post by Skid Mark


Considering the system requirements of the various distributions, I would recommend that you install Debian Linux. I use that distribution to "raise the dead" old boxes with limited memory.

You can download an install disc at debian.org

Best of luck!

I use ubuntu and also have kubuntu installed. If your not that familiar with linux. I definately suggest ubuntu. Download the live cd. Its simple to install. You can even install it side by side with your current win2k. Its very user friendly. If you have any questions u2u me and I can help walk you thru the installation.

Rather than editing my previous post im trying to reach the 200 post limit. I'll just be honest about that. If you would like help installing windows based games I would suggest after installing ubuntu to download playwithlinux and wine. Please u2u me if You have questions.

P.S. What is up with that crazy avatar?

Originally posted by RadicalGnostic
reply to post by Skid Mark

 

Considering the system requirements of the various distributions, I would recommend that you install Debian Linux. I use that distribution to "raise the dead" old boxes with limited memory.

You can download an install disc at debian.org

Best of luck!

Curious about why your backing oldschool debian? vs ubuntu/kubuntu?


please u2u me.

Linux Mint is also a good beginner Linux version. It has all the video codecs and audio support (mp3, etc) preinstalled along with flash.

It has different lightweight desktop environments like Fluxbox and Xfce so it doesn't take as much memory up.

www.linuxmint.com

Yep - I'm using a Mint9 and like it a lot. It's user friendly for the Linux newbie and I haven't had much issue getting everything up and running how I want. I did not try to dual install with Windows though (I over-wrote Windows and went solely Mint) so no bits of knowledge with that, but I will say that if you think you might want to try dual-install/booting, then do it with Windows already installed. Trying to do the reverse (from Linux to installing Windows) is quite complicated. I failed miserable trying to get it to install properly and gave up...

reply to post by madmangunradio


It's almost halloween lol.

Thanks. You've all been a big help. I'm getting tired of windows. I have Vista now and hate the invasive updater. Also, it seems like it's a resource hog. Again, thanks to all of you for your input.

Originally posted by kensho
If it was running W2k it will definitely run any kind of linux,

Um…. No……

I have Win2000 running on a P2 with 60 meg of ram. It runs fine.
There is no chance of any ubuntu variant running on it with it’s specs.

My first computer that came with Win XP only had 120 meg of ram.
Ran it for many years in that configuration.
I had to upgrade the ram to even try out ubuntu.
Heck, firefox will suck up 120meg by it’s self.

There is really, really lightweight distros like Puppy Linux puppylinux.org... and Damn Small Linux www.damnsmalllinux.org... that can run on systems with really old or low resources. You might want to check those out too.

I have an older 600 mghz, 256 megs of ram comp that does not have faster USB 2.0 ports with an Ubuntu minimum install on it and it runs so slow I can't possibly wait that long for a page to open up. I should try Open box as a much lighter desktop environment on that machine but I seldom use it anymore. XP ran fine on it but your so limited to what you can do with it, without expensive $49.95 programs. (probably 79.95 now, the way every thing else is)

The best thing I found to put on that machine was Puppy Linux 4.21. I actually prefer 4.21 to the new version because of the the dark grey themes available in the newer version.

Puppy boots from cd easily for a quick look and runs fast even on old machines. What I really like about puppy is you can move things around easier than Ubuntu. Say like your windows system want boot tomorrow, you can boot Puppy Linux from Cd and go in and copy your files to a Flash drive from your Windows system as long as your partition table isn't trashed. All the linux systems will do that, but Puppy boots so quickly being smaller.

Puppy linux seems to be limited to its own small set of installable programs so I prefer Ubuntu over it on a fast machine because there are literally thousands of programs availabe for Ubuntu and its usually less hassle to install them. Puppy does come with Gparted preinstalled which allows you to partition your hard drive into ten or twenty smaller partitions if you like. I have 18 partitions and can boot about ten different OS's.

My favorite program of all Linux is gparted and is what lead me to Linux in my quest to partition my hard drive so I wouldn't lose all my data when Windows crashes. Google kept coming up with gparted and I was like WTH is Gparted? How do I install it in Windows? Come to find out it runs on Linux.

Originally posted by madmangunradio

Originally posted by RadicalGnostic
reply to post by Skid Mark

 

Considering the system requirements of the various distributions, I would recommend that you install Debian Linux. I use that distribution to "raise the dead" old boxes with limited memory.

You can download an install disc at debian.org

Best of luck!

Curious about why your backing oldschool debian? vs ubuntu/kubuntu?

edit on 10/25/2010 by madmangunradio because: >

please u2u me.

edit on 10/25/2010 by madmangunradio because: (no reason given)

I have an old laptop and ubuntu won't even install because I guess of low ram but debian will.