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I do not know much about Linux or it's different versions of software but could someone tell me which would be the best to run on a Dell Mini n series? I would like to make the most of this system & any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
I still don't know your machine but if this is about poor performance, the distribution is probably not the issue but the software running on it. I'd try to go for a lightweight desktop like e.g. LXDE, it should be available from the Ubuntu repositories. Just look in your package manager.
PS: When this is working, it'll use much less RAM when running and you can probably safely uninstall a lot of KDE or GNOME (whichever is installed) packages to free up disk space.
Ubuntu is a good choice for beginners. 8.04 will be supported until April 2011. If you want the latest release (10.04) you can find it here: http://www.ubuntu.com/
It is helpful to indicate your exact hardware when asking for advice. "Dell Mini n Series" is too broad for me to give an exact recommendation.
It is helpful to indicate your exact hardware when asking for advice
Yep. If you want a easy way to post system specs marinegruntwife I wrote a easy tutorial for installing a script called inxi in Ubuntu 8.04. It is a small download (Kilo bytes not mega bytes) and gives you more function in your terminal to post system specs. You can copy and paste the inxi terminal readout into your next post using the code tag (#) in go advanced>taskbar># so members can see exactly what your operating system, kernel, hardware specs are.
Posting that terminal readout will help members here know what you run and will be a asset later when asking questions about your hardware. Like I said. This script won't take up much space on your drive like a application would.
Thank you again, rokytnji & zirias, for continuing to try & walk me through my Linux/Ubuntu learning experience. Rokytnji, I am going to try & use the link that you posted so I can better equip the regs here to help me with my issues. Thank you again!
Just a quick question, rokytnji, now that I have done everything in the tutorial you linked, but what do I do with this "After it upgrades to inxi 1.4.8 you can run inxi -F to look at your system specs"? Where do I find it to run it? Is there another command for the terminal that wasn't in the post? Thank you for the link it worked beautifully!
Actually I was fishing for the number that indicates your screen size in inches. As far as I know, Dell makes 3 size minis: 9n, 10n, 12n. Which of the three do you have?
in terminal. Watch the readout. Copy and paste into next post. Use the code (#) tag like I said in task bar under Advanced post option and insert readout so we can see internal hardware.
I should also mention you should type in
Code:
sudo inxi -U
to update inxi. My version is up to 1.4.12 at present time. Example below
Code:
laptop:~$ inxi -F
System: Host biker-laptop Kernel 2.6.27-8-eeepc i686 (32 bit) Distro Ubuntu 8.10 intrepid
CPU: Single core Intel Atom N270 (-HT-) cache 512 KB flags (sse sse2 sse3 ssse3) bmips 3191.96
Clock Speeds: (1) 800.00 MHz (2) 800.00 MHz
Graphics: Card Intel Mobile 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller X.Org 1.5.2 Res: 1024x600@60.0hz
GLX Renderer Mesa DRI Intel 945GME 20061102 x86/MMX/SSE2 GLX Version 1.4 Mesa 7.2 Direct Rendering Yes
Audio: Card Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) High Definition Audio Controller driver HDA Intel BusID: 00:1b.0
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture Version 1.0.22.1
Network: Card-1 Realtek RTL8101E/RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller driver r8169 v: 2.3LK-NAPI at port 3000 BusID: 02:00.0
Card-2 Atheros AR242x 802.11abg Wireless PCI Express Adapter driver ath5k_pci BusID: 03:00.0
Disks: HDD Total Size: 160.0GB (2.7% used) 1: /dev/sda WDC_WD1600BEVT 160.0GB
Partition: ID:/ size: 38G used: 4.0G (12%) fs: ext3 ID:swap-1 size: 0.26GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
ID:swap-2 size: 1.81GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
Info: Processes 125 Uptime 10 min Memory 291.7/997.8MB Runlevel 2 Client Shell inxi 1.4.12
laptop:~$ sudo inxi -U
[sudo] password for biker:
Starting inxi self updater.
Currently running inxi version number: 1.4.12
Updating inxi in /usr/local/bin using svn server as download source...
Successfully updated to svn server version: 1.4.12
To run the new version, just start inxi again.
laptop:~$ inxi -r
Repos: Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates main restricted
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates main restricted
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates universe
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates universe
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid multiverse
deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates multiverse
deb-src http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ intrepid-updates multiverse
deb-src http://archive.canonical.com/ubuntu intrepid partner
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security main restricted
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security main restricted
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security universe
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security universe
deb http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security multiverse
deb-src http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu intrepid-security multiverse
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/webkit-team/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/webkit-team/ubuntu intrepid main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/midori/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/midori/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/easypeasy.list
deb http://packages.ubuntu-eee.com intrepid main #Easy Peasy
deb http://www.array.org/ubuntu intrepid eeepc #Netbook kernel
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-team/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ppa/ubuntu intrepid main
Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/google-chrome.list
deb http://dl.google.com/linux/deb/ stable main
Active apt sources in file: /etc/apt/sources.list.d/opera.list
deb http://deb.opera.com/opera/ stable non-free
-laptop:~$ df -h
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda5 38G 4.0G 32G 12% /
tmpfs 499M 0 499M 0% /lib/init/rw
varrun 499M 104K 499M 1% /var/run
varlock 499M 0 499M 0% /var/lock
udev 499M 2.7M 497M 1% /dev
tmpfs 499M 12K 499M 1% /dev/shm
tmpfs 499M 28K 499M 1% /tmp
tmpfs 499M 0 499M 0% /var/tmp
tmpfs 499M 684K 499M 1% /var/log
Won't hurt to answer snowpines question either as snowpine is trying to help also. Just hang in there. Folks will help after you give detailed info on your hardware.
If I'm not mistaken (which I often am lol) it is a 10n. I tried to run the program suggested by rokytnji "The file '/home/rebekah/Desktop/lubuntu-10.04(2).iso' is not a valid disc image." ? Also, after trying that, my firefox icon on the desktop, now looks like a page icon now & when I try to click on it it tells me "Couldn't display "/home/rebekah/Desktop/firefox.desktop". The location is not a folder." Any ideas why that happened?
Wow, I feel like a complete idiot now. If I hadn't been so tired last night when I attempted that I would have read that slowly & been able to SEE the command. As for the code in the advanced options didn't really get that? It just posted like it was (see previous post). Can you still get the information you needed from that?
Last edited by marinegruntswife; 07-29-2010 at 11:31 AM.
8.04 uses stable older software (April 2008) and will be supported through April 2011. 10.04 is the April 2010 release with support through April 2013.
Your hardware should support Ubuntu 10.04 just fine, if you get tired of 8.04. You will have to do a fresh reinstall if you want the newer version.
I tried to run the program suggested by rokytnji "The file '/home/rebekah/Desktop/lubuntu-10.04(2).iso' is not a valid disc image." ? Also, after trying that, my firefox icon on the desktop, now looks like a page icon now & when I try to click on it it tells me "Couldn't display "/home/rebekah/Desktop/firefox.desktop". The location is not a folder." Any ideas why that happened?
I sure never even mentioned Lubuntu 10.04 to you. You must have me confused with somebody else. Tired, huh .
My take on half of your problems is that your 3.8 gig drive is 100% full according to the inxi readout. Which will cause problems. Wish you had the skills to move /home to a external USB or SD Flash Drive and symlink and edit a /ect/fstab also. That would free up your internal drive.
Also I don't see on google any restore option like F9 like the EEEPC I have had when I ran Xandros. Dell didn't provide a restore option from the looks of it. So that option is out.
You can try a
Code:
sudo apt-get clean
in Terminal
which is safe to see if it frees up any space on your drive I guess. It will show how many mbs will be removed and ask you yes or no before it will run also. It will also show what will be removed.
The Firefox Icon missing problem probably happened because your drive is full (my guess anyhows).
Closing I will mention this. Your 4 gig internal drive will fill up also using Windows XP, or Windows 7. In case you are thinking about that (from previous posts). You would have to learn how to NLITE Windows XP before you could install even Windows XP. I also run Puppeee on a USB and SD Flash drive on my Asus EEEPC 900 and Acer Aspire One ZG5. I also run a AntiX 8.5 Live persistent 4 gig SD Flash card also. I boot up all of these using bios change boot to USB order also. Later, when time and funds allow I will be making a Fluppy USB also. I use Kingston 4 gig Data travelers for that from BigLots Discount Store. So I guess you have a lot
to learn but hopefully learn you will.
So, today after 3 & a half hours of trying to free up every kb of space I could, I finally finished & when it gave me the command to restart... my screen froze. I had to to do a hard shut down & when I rebooted it, you guessed it, in the words of Tom Cruise in MI:1 "TOAST". I had to reinstall (again) Ubuntu 8.4 & disable my automatic updates. I'm not ashamed to say this (literally) brought me to tears. I'm just so overwhelmed. I had my husband go to Best Buy on his way to work today & pick up an extra 32gbs for me to install tomorrow. Hopefully, (or I'm going to have no hair left from ripping it all out), that will solve A LOT of my issues. rokytnji, I'm very sorry for mis-quoting you & getting you confused with someone else, (yes, lack of sleep, I have a 4 month old lol), I do appreciate the advice again, & yes, I also find the cheapest but most reliable flashes are the kingstons from Big Lots, as that is where I have gotten my last 3. I am going to keep this 8.4 version until I can get the new upgraded drive installed & I have all the space to install anything on. I'm not sure if I am going to install Windows at this point, if I can get a similar linux system that runs on smaller gbs then I might opt for that. I'm sorry this has been a continual head for you all as well as myself.
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Dell Mini n Series currently running Ubutntu 8.4
I sure never even mentioned Lubuntu 10.04 to you. You must have me confused with somebody else. Tired, huh 
.
