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Ready to try Linux --- Need advice
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Source：Internet Author：Unknow Pubdate：2010-03-29
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hmchi (Electrical)
14 Dec 09 18:46
I have purchased a netbook computer for my wife to use, and now I can use her old Dell laptop to learn Linux.
I would like to simply use Linux and Firefox to surf the net, that is all. The old Dell laptop is simply too slow for WinXP, which is why we got her a new computer. Linux has a reputation of being small and efficient, perhaps it will operate much better in the older system.
The old laptop has the following existing system :
My requests are :
[1] Can you guys recommend a suitable Linux system [I need graphical interface, not command prompt] and tell me where ro go to download and install [assuming it is good for this laptop, not a desktop]
[2] Will this old system work reasonably well and fast with Linux ?
Dell Computer Corporation Latitude CSx H500XT
Operating System
Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3 (build 2600) 字串8
500 megahertz Intel Pentium III
32 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache
Not hyper-threaded
Board: Dell Computer Corporation Latitude CSx H500XT
Bus Clock: 66 megahertz
BIOS: Dell Computer Corporation A07 01/29/2000
Drives Memory Modules c,d
12.06 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
2.02 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space
TOSHIBA CD-ROM XM-7002B
IBM-DARA-212000 [Hard drive] (12.07 GB) -- drive 0, rev AR4OA50A, SMART Status: Healthy
256 Megabytes Usable Installed Memory
Slot 'DIMM_A' has 128 MB
Slot 'DIMM_B' has 128 MB
Local Drive Volumes
c: (FAT32 on drive 0) 12.06 GB 2.02 GB free
Controllers Display
Standard floppy disk controller
CMD PCI-0646U2 Ultra DMA IDE Controller
Intel(R) 82371AB/EB PCI Bus Master IDE Controller
Primary IDE Channel [Controller] (2x)
Secondary IDE Channel [Controller]
NeoMagic MagicGraph256ZX driver [Display adapter]
Default Monitor 字串3
Bus Adapters Multimedia
Texas Instruments PCI-1225 CardBus Controller (2x) NeoMagic MagicMedia 256 + AC97 Driver (WDM)
Thanks for your help !!!
IRstuff (Aerospace)
14 Dec 09 19:13
You may wish to RF this post and re-post on tek-tips.com, ala: http://www.tek-tips.com/threadminder.cfm?pid=619 which is more geared towards questions like yours. TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
14 Dec 09 19:14
See:
http://distrowatch.com/
It has vectors to just about every Linux distribution that's available.
For your computer, I suggest Puppy Linux. Don't let the name put you off; it's not a toy. What it is, is small, and fast, and entirely usable without command line incantations. You can boot it from a CD, and never even bother installing it to the hard drive if you like. (On a modern HP laptop, it boots from a CD _much_ faster than Vista boots from the hard drive. Okay, Vista's a pig anyway.) 字串4
Most of the more popular distributions would basically require replacing the hard drive, and would run slowly or not at all in only 256Mb of ram. Modern Linux is fast, but a complete installation is _not_ small.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
hmchi (Electrical)
14 Dec 09 20:44
Thanks, Mike,
The CDROM drive is physically separate from the laptop so I would rather not rely on it to boot up all the time .. and I have no use of current hard drive contents .. As a matter of fact, every time I boot up from WinXP it is like waiting for paint to dry .. I would like to get out from under it .. if I put Linux in to replace Windows, would it still be pretty fast with puppy linux ?
Thanks
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
14 Dec 09 20:50
Puppy will boot and run much faster than XP, and can be installed to a hard drive. 字串4
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
MacGyverS2000 (Electrical)
15 Dec 09 7:12
Definitely better for tek-tips...
That said, the distros that boot off of a CD will usually boot off of a USB stick... and 1GB sticks are dirt cheap. Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
Noway2 (Electrical)
15 Dec 09 9:41
This question has been clobbered on tek-tips, so definitely search there.
Ubuntu and its variants has an excellent reputation and an easy learning curve. The hardest part is deciding how to partition the HD during installation, which the easiest option is just to let the installation utility handle it for you.
One of the primary advantages to Ubuntu is the package repositories, which are professionally managed. Almost all of the software you could possibly want to use are already compiled and configured for the distribution. You then use the package manager to select which items you would like to add to your system, click ok and voila - installed and ready to go. This saves you from one of the biggest headaches newbies face of how to configure, build, and install packages from scratch. 字串3
The newer distributions have very good support for both modern and older hardware. If you plan to use a laptop, the biggest area that you run into trouble is with wireless Ethernet adapters, but even there things have greatly stabilized in the last year or so.
The current kernel supports what is called the EXT-4 file system, which is MUCH faster than previous (and other) formats. Similarly, most applications are very light weight and consume a few hundred K of memory rather than hundreds of megs, so I doubt you will find performance an issue at all.
ScottyUK (Electrical)
15 Dec 09 14:37
Bear in mind that flash memory has a finite number of read-write cycles before it goes screwy. I wouldn't put an O/S on a flash drive.
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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education! 字串6
MacGyverS2000 (Electrical)
15 Dec 09 14:57
At $5/stick, I think I could live with the reduced life for the convenience Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
ScottyUK (Electrical)
15 Dec 09 15:03
LOL.
You must have better luck than me: it would decide to top itself right when I needed it most and had no alternative available!
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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
IRstuff (Aerospace)
15 Dec 09 15:13
I've had 4 flash memories die, none due to wearout of the chip itself. In one case, the USB connector flexed enough to pop two traces on the board. TTFN
FAQ731-376: Eng-Tips.com Forum Policies
字串3
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
15 Dec 09 23:43
I forgot to mention; Puppy Linux doesn't come with Firefox by default. Its default browser is SeaMonkey, which is visually and functionally similar, smaller, and faster. Everything in Puppy runs fast, because it's tiny, and runs entirely from ram once booted.
I have Puppy installed on the 4.7Gb hard drive of an old ThinkPad here with 256Mb of ram. I've had Ubuntu installed on that machine before; it was a pretty tight squeeze. I've had Centos installed on it, too; an even tighter squeeze. Neither much cared for the small ram. Puppy is happy in small spaces.
Lots of people like Ubuntu. My experience with it has been mixed. I have it on a hidden partition of what is otherwise a modern CAD computer at work, where it mostly works okay. My own, older, computers all have had problems with it, mostly with various wireless cards; I seem to own none that it likes. It's getting better, but Ubuntu always seems to require editing some damn configuration file to get some important part of it working. Good luck if networking doesn't come up right away, and it keeps trying to go to the Web when you ask it for help. 字串6
Burn a Puppy CD, and boot from it. You can probably do both in 15 minutes, plus maybe 15 more to set up the network card, all done with simple intuitive menus. It can save your desktop and settings, so subsequent boots will be faster and you won't have to answer any questions. Then you can install it to the hard drive, in a couple of different ways, only if you like it.
Ubuntu will take hours to install.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
hmchi (Electrical)
15 Dec 09 23:56
Mike,
I think I am sold on Puppy. However, I am so new to Linux that I might as well take advantage of your kindness and ask you about some of the basic questions:
1. Using a Windows machine to download, say to the hard drive first, wouldn't the downloaded files be formatted under windows ? Then how can we be sure that the Linux installation process can read them ? 字串1
2. Similarly, burning CDs --- wouldn't we need to format the CD based on Linux and not Windows ? Shows you how much I know ...
3. Partitioning --- as I said, I do not want any reminants of Windows on this machine any more .. how can I get rid of it ? reformatting the hard drive ? or when we install the Puppy, it will automatically reformat the hard drive ?
These are why I have not even begun to download yet .. Your help will be appreciated ..
MacGyverS2000 (Electrical)
16 Dec 09 7:25
Scotty,
One point... the OS may be stored on the stick, but it's run in RAM. Same as if it was stored on a CD. There's no flash wear to worry about unless you're overwriting the OS on a second-by-second basis. Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
ScottyUK (Electrical)
16 Dec 09 7:36
字串9
Hi Dan,
So it just loads it direct to RAM initially and leaves the memory alone after that? Ok, that makes sense. Thanks!
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If we learn from our mistakes I'm getting a great education!
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
16 Dec 09 8:31
You download one file only, an 'ISO' file. It's a binary image of a CD already loaded with content. You can download it to and store it on anyone's computer using any operating system.
When you format a hard drive, you are laying out and writing track and sector markers that you will later use to selectively write specific areas.
You only get one chance to write a CD; all the content goes on, at the same time that retrieval markers are added.
You 'burn' the ISO file to a CD, using anyone's CD burner software. 字串8
You don't copy the ISO file to the CD; it won't work, because it's not a regular OS file.
You typically use the function of your CD burner software that you would use to copy a complete CD, with the intermediate step of storing an image of it, except that you already have the image, in the form of the ISO file.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
MacGyverS2000 (Electrical)
16 Dec 09 11:00
Mike,
Don't forget about multiple TOCs on a CD/DVD... you can't write over a previously written section, but you can add to it and rewrite a "fresh" TOC, making it look like it was written all at the same time.
Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
16 Dec 09 21:31
... which is one of the ways that Puppy Linux can store the information you want to keep, e.g. desktop and whatever customizations you did. Since the ISO image is only ~100Mb, there's plenty of room. So if you have a CD/RW drive, you don't even need a hard drive. 字串6
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
MacGyverS2000 (Electrical)
17 Dec 09 7:40
I'm not sure I would agree with that... burning a new TOC takes up several MBs (trying to On top of that, the lead-in section where TOCs are written is relatively small, so you can only writen to a multi-session disc a handful of times before the lead-in is full... I think I managed 8-10 last time I played with it, maybe less (been many years). Dan - Owner
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
CH5OH (Petroleum)
22 Jan 10 17:47
i played around with fedora some time,you just download an iso image, however went back to xp to play some poker online,and never could configure something to vieuw dvd on my laptop,apart from doing so with command line
but i am very close to switching to linux again
damn bill gates
字串8
Noway2 (Electrical)
23 Jan 10 20:46
I for one, am glad to hear that you have decided to drink the cool-aid!
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
12 Mar 10 12:36
I don't need a flashdrive right now, but I stumbled over another lightweight distribution.
It's named AntiX. I think it's pronounced 'antiques', which tells you the sort of hardware it can run on. It's based on Mepis; I don't know how that's pronounced.
Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
MacGyverS2000 (Electrical)
12 Mar 10 13:47
LOL, Mike... you ignored the spammer as if it was some stranger offering a comment on your conversation as he was walking through the room. You barely blinked or looked in his direction as you waved him by... Dan - Owner 字串1
http://www.Hi-TecDesigns.com
MikeHalloran (Mechanical)
12 Mar 10 18:24
I knew he'd be gone soon enough. Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
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