pawz7 Posted April 18, 2011 Report Share Posted April 18, 2011 We have a laptop that came to us with XP installed, and which I put Vista Business on, mainly to familiarise myself with the system. It wasn't a good move as the machine does not have enough memory to comfortably accommodate Vista, but as we mostly used that laptop to test signal strength when going to folks homes to set up their wireless broadband, it didn't matter. Now we are thinking of passing the machine to someone else but not with Vista on it - so I thought of Linux. However, I have never installed Linux on a laptop and wonder what I need to know and which version you might recommend. Obviously it has to have a friendly GUI so that anyone can use it. Can you help please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted April 18, 2011 Report Share Posted April 18, 2011 http://www.linuxmint.com/download.php/>http://www.pclinuxos.com/?page_id=10The two links above should suit your needs.Both of these distros install all propriety drivers, so no hunting around for them.I suggest you download both of them, burn the ISO's to CD's and run them from the live CD, that way you will be able to ensure everything works before you install the distro.As the laptop is not very high specification, I would advise you to download the 32bit version. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
-pops- Posted April 18, 2011 Report Share Posted April 18, 2011 Is the original Recovery Partition still loaded on the drive or do you have the (an) XP disk? You may be able to re-install XP provided you still have the Product Key. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted April 18, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2011 thank you Alan, I will give that a go. Pops no there is no partiton. I could put XP Home on again using the machines PID couldn't I. I think I have a retail version that would do - but I would like to try the Linux first. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scythe Posted April 23, 2011 Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 If you're giving it to someone I would not recommend linux. Unless, that is, they are highely experienced with computers. On a low-spec machine I would completely agree with mint, though. It's cute and quite lite. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted April 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 Scythe yes, I agree. I think I just wanted to see what it was like with Linux before handing it on, but, probably it would be best to go back to XP. However I have to resolve a problem with the optical drive before I can put any system on, so nothing is happening yet. We have just given a young man on Freecycle a tower, and he says he is going to put Linux on, so there are some 'Linuxians' out there :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scythe Posted April 23, 2011 Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 ^__^ I've got dual boot Sabayon] on this Vista machine, more for experimentation (I'm 15) than for full-time use. I'll probably reformat and sell this machine sometime soon though, since there's only 40gb of HD space left, and it's getting a little outdated on the gaming front :|Cheers for linuxians! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pawz7 Posted April 23, 2011 Author Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 I can remember someone asking me way back, probably about 1995-6 if I thought Linux would ever 'catch on' and be a threat to Microsoft. I said 'No'.... oops! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scythe Posted April 23, 2011 Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 I was born in '96 lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Boris Posted April 23, 2011 Report Share Posted April 23, 2011 I sometimes feel that I was born in '96 too ..... 1896 :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scythe Posted April 24, 2011 Report Share Posted April 24, 2011 nice AMD's you got there, I always prefer amd>intel :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MANEMAN Posted April 26, 2011 Report Share Posted April 26, 2011 nice AMD's you got there, I always prefer amd>intel AMD or Intel ? - Which ? - Why ?More info please.John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rong Posted April 26, 2011 Report Share Posted April 26, 2011 Boris's signature has a list of his computers Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scythe Posted April 26, 2011 Report Share Posted April 26, 2011 well, I like amd because frankly they're the better workhorse processors (and on a side note, the new i7 architecture was stolen from amd). amds might have a smaller cache than comparable intels, but that's not always required. All the amds I've ever worked with never hickup, or caused error. The intels I've used have been...not as good. i7 @ 2.0GHz (4x) ran "utility" apps (photoshop, word, notepad++, video editors, etc) slower than a duo @ 2.13GHz (2x). The duo in my laptop also had the brilliant idea of killing off or throttling core windows processes when I did a manual clock/heat test (100% strain, 3minutes) resulting in a blue screen]/b]. AMD also runs about $50 cheaper than a comparable intel, for a negligible clock speed difference. Plus, if you have an ATI gpu and a amd cpu (ati is a subsidiary of amd) fusion kicks in, giving you about an extra 500MHz-1GHz to play around with :D Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrkallen Posted September 5, 2011 Report Share Posted September 5, 2011 Anyone who is already using Linux on laptop? and what the reqirements? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bludgard Posted September 5, 2011 Report Share Posted September 5, 2011 Anyone who is already using Linux on laptop? and what the reqirements?I run Linux on desktops and laptops. Depending on the distro, Linux will run on a lot less than what Windows requires. One major requirement is the ability to step out of the box and learn something new.;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shirley Crabtree Posted September 12, 2011 Report Share Posted September 12, 2011 I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix onto an Asus ieee netbook a while back and was amazed how easily and quickly it installed (from pendrive)It boots far quicker than XP ever did and everything works a treat, I would certainly have no qualms in using it again./>https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromUSBStick Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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