tag:ask-leo.com,2011://3/tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222- 2011-11-22T22:49:53Z Comments for Should I convert to Linux? Movable Type 4.32-en tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:58851 Comment from Dick Parker on 2011-08-05 Dick Parker I've been studying the various Linux Distros for at least 6 months and have tried several of them as live cd's including among others Mandriva and Ubuntu. Then I tried Linux Mint. Currently my choice is Linux Mint Xfce. I'm running a pc with a 1.4 GHz Athlon, 512 RAM, and a 320 Gig HDD. It is set up to dual boot with Windows XP since I have 2 programs which won't tun on Linux (my J Rivers Media Jukebox and movie organizer.) Otherwise I'd have completely switched since I'm tired of dealing with the Windows cost and other issues. In fact, to upgrade to Windows 7, will take new computers for our family, not an insignificant cost.

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 2011-08-05T17:44:51Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:52632 Comment from Roland985 on 2010-11-30 Roland985 I cannot stress that more. I am posting this from a pentium 3 running at 450 MHZ with puppy Linux, a distro designed for older PC's. As of version 5, puppy is binary compatible with Ubuntu. What ubuntu can run, puppy can also. Go ahead. There is nothing to lose...

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 2010-12-01T04:59:45Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:52613 Comment from Carol Putman on 2010-11-30 Carol Putman http://unspecified Here's my cautionary tale. Having recently reinstalled Windows XP after trying Ubuntu 10.10 from the Live CD, I must warn anyone trying it out to check first before installing Ubuntu to see whether your printer (or other hardware) is supported by whatever installation you choose. I ran Ubuntu alongside Windows for a while and liked it, so I decided to install it (alongside Windows, I thought), but during the installation I guess I agreed to having Ubuntu reformat the hard drive and it removed Windows.

I wasn't too upset because I still liked it and thought it would work fine until I tried to print a letter and found that it did not have a driver from Canon that would support my printer and after visiting forums and searching for an answer found that Canon had no plans to develop one for Ubuntu or any other Linux installation, as far as I could tell. So, this put a tremendous dent in my ability to use Ubuntu and I would have to have Windows on the computer, too, for those times when I needed to print something. Either that or buy a new, supported printer which I did not want to do. So, I had to remove it and reinstall Windows XP.

During the installation process, however, Ubuntu deleted a FATS partition from the hard drive that I had wanted to get rid of for a very long time but couldn't in Windows XP. So, everything turned out ok. I just wish I could have installed it to run inside Windows, or alongside without having to use the CD each time I wanted to use it. That slowed the whole process down so much, it wasn't really a solution to my "old computer" problem.

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 2010-11-30T20:20:13Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:52606 Comment from samuel on 2010-11-30 samuel i have an older computer 1gb ram, and my dedicated video card died. so playing Diablo II on bnet became a lag problem. using game booster and process explorer, i was able to get my Xp installation down to use 44% of my ram, still lagging on Bnet, i wondered if vista would do better i installed it, but it used over 68% of my ram no matter what i did and bnet was even worse. then i switched to win 7, i got the resources down to about 56% of my ram, which seemed to fill up quickly when using programs. then i found a win 7 installation that has the cache turned off. (is it true Leo, win 7 reserves 512k for caching???) not only does my computer fly now, i can play on Bnet, and using game booster and process explorer i can get win 7 down to using 22% of my ram!!!!!!!!!! it handles memory so much better that my old intel 945 video adapter has plenty of spirit and i dont have to switch to linux now!

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 2010-11-30T19:02:16Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:52604 Comment from James on 2010-11-30 James Surely (almost) the easiest thing to try is installing more RAM? Assuming you're not running more stuff in the background that's doing you no good at all. I run a 1 GHz Athlon WinXP in 1 GB of RAM and have nothing to complain of.
Many machines, particularly older ones, are already maxed out on the amount of RAM they can hold.
Leo
01-Dec-2010

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 2010-11-30T18:25:05Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:44489 Comment from Jeff S on 2010-03-16 Jeff S http://unspecified I have just tried the Live CD version of Mandriva Linux 2010, and not only does it recognize all my hardware on both machines, it also will let me import my Windows Xp data. I for one cannot lose 1.5 Tb.'s of data, as it is important to my work.
yet out of all the latest distro's available, this one simply works, with out breaking my exisiting Xp install /stored files.
i hope this helps anyone considering the switch to linux.

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 2010-03-17T06:32:30Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:43765 Comment from alex on 2010-02-26 alex I have a Belkin Wireless G Windows -comp 802.11g comp notebook card. Can I download something to convert it to a linux card?

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 2010-02-27T02:47:32Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:36478 Comment from R. Tarun Handa on 2009-07-29 R. Tarun Handa I just bought a Toshiba NB205-311/W netbook with Windows XP home and trial versions of Norton, Works, etc, none of which I am enthused about paying for. I already have an assigned work laptop (personal use discouraged seriously) and a home desktop, which has all the addons and memory I require for most purposes, which I am not ready to part with yet. So this netbook is going to be used for my weekend-away-from-home, holidays where weight is at a premium, checking my e-mails in bed or surfing-the-net on the verandah. I really am quite frustrated by the bloatware that Microsoft is creating not to mention the instability issues that I see on my work laptop and my home desktop frequently, so want to try Linux, etc. Do you think Linux + Openoffice would be a viable trial environment for the new Netbook? And if so, what browser will I need to download?
Yep. My little Asus eeePC is running a version of Ubuntu. I think you'll find most come with FireFox for a browser.
Leo
29-Jul-2009

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 2009-07-29T10:23:06Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30741 Comment from birrrdad on 2009-02-23 birrrdad In your opinion, what should I do? I am a complete green pea!!

I'm running an old Dell w/ a pentium III processor. The OS is Windows XP. I have a ton of files I want to keep on this computer, and never want to lose.

How can I convert to Linux? How would I import my files to the new OS? If I have cleaned up my disks and the computer still ran slow, would it run faster with Linux? Would I have more space...??? Do I have enough in my old processor to handle the use of both Windows XP and Linux?

Please help. I'm broke and need some tips. I heard something about being able to do all this for free, just by downloading, and tweaking. Is this true?

Thank you!!!
-slow computer user

First, BACK UP THOSE FILES. Burn them to CD or do something so that you have them somewhere safe in case your computer dies or otherwise has problems.

Second, yes Linux may well be a viable alternative. Without knowing exactly what kinds of applications you rely on it's hard to give you a definite yes or not. I will say that most Linux installations will reformat (erase) your hard disk as part of the installation process. There are ways around it, but if you have your files BACKED UP it's often still the right thing to do.

Good luck!

- Leo
24-Feb-2009
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 2009-02-24T01:32:19Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30740 Comment from Neowulf on 2007-12-04 Neowulf http://unspecified I'm suprised Leo!?! There a number of emulator/virtual machines for Linux! I personally use Ubuntu 7.10 and tried Linux Mint, Mandrake, and kubuntu! On my current Ubuntu based computer I'm using Wine for Windows media Player and a few other apps! And Im using Innotek Virtual box to run XP inside Ubuntu! I use Compiz fusion which a desktop manager basically gives you 4 desktops in the form of a cube and on one side of the cube is XP (Would be vista but my 64-bit Vista isnt supported yet) and on the other 3 desktops I play with internet or whatever! I have a Matrix animated background for all the desktops play music surf the internet with Linux and inside the xp virtual machine I encode video or anything else while my system is faster than Windoze would
be as the host system! Did I mention this is all on my HP laptop lol! I have to say I havent been able to play Battlefield 2142 online in the xp box tho! Heres is an attempt at posting a screenshot!
http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j43/brianarydata/Screenshot-4.png

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 2007-12-04T21:56:07Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30739 Comment from Michael Horowitz on 2007-12-03 Michael Horowitz http://unspecified If you are considering using Linux on an old computer, this article of mine might be useful.

Is Linux right for your mother?
http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13554_1-9792477-33.html

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 2007-12-04T06:12:24Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30738 Comment from Lian on 2007-12-01 Lian http://unspecified When you're running from LiveCD, loading of programs will be quite slower than normal because it's loading from CD. After you load it once, it'll load from RAM. (In Ubuntu) You can add a system monitor on your panel and change the preference to show the memory. Then you can see how much RAM is used while you're doing your usual work. Note that "cached" doesn't really count as being "used". I personally would recommend Ubuntu. I've used it for 5 months and never gone back to Windows. Good luck.

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 2007-12-02T04:38:08Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30737 Comment from Harold on 2007-12-01 Harold I agree with Richard about trying the small linux distros. I have been looking for a couple of months at different linux distros. Those he mentioned would be a great place to start.

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 2007-12-01T15:57:57Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30736 Comment from John Clemens on 2007-11-30 John Clemens I see someone beat me to the suggestion to just go back to Windows 2000. Which I run with 512mb RAM on a P3 1000mHz computer, and I shamelessly overload it with live stock market data coming in and many programs running at the same time. Occasionally the overload boggles it down, but in general it does very well.

Which brings up a question for you Leo, why XP? Can you tell me what advantage a person would gain by switching from Win2000 to WinXP?

John

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 2007-12-01T03:28:31Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30735 Comment from Dan Ullman on 2007-11-30 Dan Ullman I second the suggestion of trying out Ubuntu with a "Live Cd" . If you do not like it or if it does not meet your needs then all you have to do is get rid of the CD. Other Linux distros also have "Live CD" so you can easily test any number of them.

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 2007-11-30T18:02:42Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30734 Comment from Bill on 2007-11-30 Bill http://unspecified I think that installing Windows 2000 is still a very good option for this laptop! I have several older machines running this version of Windows. Even on an old P1 233 Mhz. - 128 MB RAM it runs quite well!

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 2007-11-30T13:04:38Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30733 Comment from Mary on 2007-11-29 Mary http://unspecified One of the nice things about Ubuntu is you can run it from its own CD without actually installing it on the computer. And if you want a very lite Linux version, take a look at Puppy Linux.
http://www.puppylinux.com/

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 2007-11-29T18:24:27Z tag:ask-leo.com,2007://3.3222-comment:30732 Comment from Richard Chapman on 2007-11-29 Richard Chapman I think Ubuntu would have a hard time in 384MB of ram. It would still work but it would not be as nimble. I would first try SAM Linux. It's a derivative of PCLinuxOS. I would download the Live CD and give it a whirl. It has most of the multimedia codecs and plugins baked in or at least readily available with the package manager. The next step down in hardware requirements is Puppy Linux and after that DSL (Damn Small Linux).

Sam Linux
DistroWatch Page:http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=04124
Live CD iso:http://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/linux/sam/SAM-2007.iso

Puppy Linux
DistroWatch Page: http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=04531
Live CD iso:ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distributions/puppylinux/puppy-3.01-seamonkey.iso

Damn Small Linux
DistroWatch Page: http://distrowatch.com/?newsid=04552
Live CD iso:ftp://ftp.nluug.nl/pub/metalab/distributions/damnsmall/current/dsl-4.0.iso

I would be happy to have a laptop with any one of these distributions on it. Just remember that the world of Linux is very different than that of Microsoft Windows. Sometimes people trying Linux for the first time will make the mistake that if Ubuntu doesn't work for them, then Linux doesn't work for them. That's like saying if Chevy doesn't work for you, then neither does Honda, Ford, Toyota or any of the other makes and models of cars. We've been trained by Microsoft to believe that one size fits all, their size. It's not true with cars and it's not true with operating systems. Good luck.

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 2007-11-29T18:22:53Z