Hi, I am new to linux and ubuntu, and pretty much pc illiterate! I have recently bought a new linux tower with ubuntu, and wanted to put the linux os with ubuntu on my old pc also, I have formatted the hd and got rid of windows xp, and then tried to install the linux ubuntu onto the old machine, it didn't work, so tried and older version of ubuntu 8.04 that i dl'd and put to a disc, 2 versions just incase, 1 a 32 and 1 a 64, but i had a message saying:-
THIS KERNAL REQUIRES A X86-64 CPU, BUT ONLY DETECTED AN I1586 CPU. UNABLE TO BOOT, PLEASE USE A KERNEL APPROPRIATE FOR YOUR CPU.
I am at a loss as to what to do now, and I would really love to have the old pc, which I have given to the children to run on linux ubuntu, and hopefully then be able to network the 2 pc's, any help would be greatly appreciated,
many thanks in advance
Trudy.

Get hold of the 32 bit version (you can download it from http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download). Your old PC is obviously not a 64-bit system.

Check the specs of your computer against https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...emRequirements. You might have to opt for the alternate installer or xubuntu or even for a completely different distro that's tailored towards lower end PCs.

Oh ok, thank's so much! have tried the 32 bit already, but just incase am downloading again to try once more, if not then I will try your other advice, have clicked on the link, and am now off to check the specs, while I wait for the dl to finish!! fingers crossed, and again thank's a lot for replying and for your help! I will let you know how it goes!
trudy.

Hi again, I have checked the specs.... they are as follows:_

intel celeron D processor 325
256 MB DDR
40GB HD
intergrated intel extreme graphics
up to 64MB dynamically shared video mem
v92-ready modem 56k
ieee 1394 firewire interface

As I'm sure you can tell I am not so good with computers yet, but I am hoping to learn, but in your opinion do you think that it's a low end pc? If it is, what would you suggest my next step to be?
Thanks again
Trudy

Hi again, I wonder if you could possibly make sense of this for me? I have checked the specs of the old pc which are as follows:-
intel celeron D processor 325
256 mb DDR
40GB HD
intergrated intel extreme graphics
up to 64mb dynamically shared video mem
v92 - ready modem 56k
ieee1394 firewire interface.
I could be completely wrong here, but I'm thinking that the old pc is not completely low end then?, considering that it's about 10 years old!lol am I correct in thinking it has more than the minimum requirements? As i'm sure you can already see, for the time time being I am useless at these things, but would really like to learn!
Trudy

Hi Trudy,

Check the minimum requirements for xubuntu from the requirements page that I gave earlier. Your system matches the minimum requirements to a great extent (don't forget that 64MB video has to be subtracted from the main memory).
Note that xubuntu comes with different applications compared to ubuntu; you can install other applications (e.g. openoffice) but they will run slow (specially the startup). And you need to use the alternative CD

I did run xubuntu 6.06 on a system with a slightly faster processor (450MHz AMD K6-III) but with only 128MB memory; it was definitely slow when starting application like openoffice or evolution. Browsing the web was OK.

I can not advise on distro's for this type of machine. You might want to try a few before settling down on one. Have a look at mini distributions on linuxlinks.com

you could install a Lighter ubuntu

like wattOS
or crunchbang lite

http://www.planetwatt.com/

http://www.crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/...ition_-_32-bit

and maybe even the iceubuntu alpha release
http://icebuntu.com/

you could also, once you get ubuntu installed
also install variuos distro's into that same ubuntu [partition

so far, I've got ubuntu ultimate
slax
grml
pmagic
tinycore
3 puppy's
fedora 11
and sidux all installed into one partition
they all run persistent too

[QUOTE=Wim Sturkenboom;3661877]Hi Trudy,

Check the minimum requirements for xubuntu from the requirements page that I gave earlier. Your system matches the minimum requirements to a great extent (don't forget that 64MB video has to be subtracted from the main memory).

Note that xubuntu comes with different applications compared to ubuntu; you can install other applications (e.g. openoffice) but they will run slow (specially the startup). And you need to use the alternative CD

I did run xubuntu 6.06 on a system with a slightly faster processor (450MHz AMD K6-III) but with only 128MB memory; it was definitely slow when starting application like openoffice or evolution. Browsing the web was OK.

I can not advise on distro's for this type of machine. You might want to try a few before settling down on one. Have a look at mini distributions on linuxlinks.com[/QUOT



Hi again, to update you on my progress..... I dl'd xubuntu, trfrd to a cd and installed onto the old pc, everything seemed to be going well, it installed everything and then told me to restart pc, which I did, ( with excitement I might add!) but then when ubuntu loaded, the only thing that came up was a black screen and in the top left hand corner a small white box with command prompt??? I am such a novice at this, I dont know whether that is normal and meant to happen, or if somethings gone wrong....again! lol Is this meant to happen, and if so, what on earth do I do with that? I am so sorry for being such a pain, thanks again so much for your help thus far
Trudy

give it a few minutes probabley probing your video card for the right settings, when i first install installed xbuntu it took a few minutes for the desktop to come up on a pentium III with 300mb of ram. I've used Xubuntu on 128mb but was really slow

ok thanks for the reply, I have restarted the pc and just let it load up by itself, and it's been a good 15 mins now and still nothing happening, I have the white box in the top left hand corner and the rest is just a black screen, but I do have a little circular white cursor thats going round? Is this what happens do you know? i also tried putting the disk in and selecting the option try ubuntu without any change to your computer, and it did work, i could go into applications etc, and let me browse the net, but very slowly? any other advice you could offer would be most appreciated
thanks
trudy

Which version of Ubuntu? There seem to be problems with the Intel video drivers in 9.04. Sorry, I should have warned you for that because I saw it in your spec. That might be the problem.

Easiest might be to install the 8.04 (LTS) version).

You can try the following (I will try to be gentle)

1. press <ctrl><alt><F1> (this is, control and alt and F1 at the same time); this will take you to a console (you might have to try F2, F3 up to F6).
2. login with your username and password
3. type sudo nano /etc/X11/xorg.conf
4. it will prompt you for your password; enter it
5. scroll through the file using the the cursor keys and look for the section device; the first (and probably only) line in this section will be Identifier "Configured Video Device"
6. add the line Driver "vga" after the Identifier line (before the line EndSection) If the line with driver already exists, change it.
7. press <ctrl>o (control and letter o) to save
8. press <ctrl>x (control and letter x) to exit
9. press <ctrl><alt><F7> to get back to the graphical environment
10. press <alt><printscreen>k (alt and printscreen and letter k) to restart the graphical environment

What we have done is attempt to change the video driver from something unknown (probably intel driver) to a generic VGA driver.

While writing this, I'm not sure if the driver should be VGA or VESA but VGA should work for now.

For reference

awww thanks a lot for your help, I have repeatedly tried to do what you advised, but for some reason once i get to the username, it accepts the user then prompts me for a password but when i go and type the password in nothing happens? I can't get anything to type in the password, it just doesnt do a thing, so i cant even get to type the sudo nano things that you told me to type.
i went for the light version of xubuntu, the alternative, the latest version of that, but as for getting to type commands, when i get to the password part it just wont do anything! im pretty much despondent now
Thanks again, so much for all your help
trudy

It does not show anything (for security). Just type it and press <enter>