first Linux install, what could go wrong heh
 

used linux before (ubuntuMeerkat I think) but first time ever reviving a sluggish old laptop by myself (dell latitude d620, intel t2300 @1.666GHz, 1gm of RAM, 74.5g drive).

Got (pretty much, I think) the data I want to save copied off it; got a distru of linux on a USB drive; thought I'd post here before I start to see if anyone has any wurdz of advice before I start...

tks in advance, wish me luck ;-)

Hello.

If you have linux ONLY and for some reason you wish to change then you really can't go wrong......

Well, what distro are you trying on this box? You do know that a distro made for low resource systems may be a better choice?

hmmm going with Ubuntu b/c the software engineers working on the vGame I'm producing recommended it ;-) Tks for the pointer, if it doesn't go well I'll try a smaller distru.

cheers -RB

You could try a light weight derivate of Ubuntu such as: Lubuntu, or Xubuntu, I also heard great reviews about Elementary OS Luna. You could just do a search to find out if your computer meet the requirements to run them. I believe the PAE support CPU is one of them.

Good luck to you in your project

Bad, bad idea. Ubuntu is very resource heavy, it will not run well on your machine, if at all. You should investigate light weight distros for a machine of those specs. Honestly I wouldn't recommend Ubuntu period because of its instability and integrated spyware, but even if you were determined to run Ubuntu, I wouldn't do it on anything older than 2-3 years.

hmmm ok, anyone have any thoughts re the puppylinux lightweight distro vs. lubuntu, xubuntu, and or elementary OS?

I tried Puppy Linux for a week it runs great!
Puppy ran well on an old Toshibia satelite laptop I had with a pentium processor:-
http://puppylinux.org/main/Download%...%20Release.htm

Not sure about Lubuntu but Xubuntu is a nice distro as well.
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/xubuntu/re....04.3/release/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TEIPfYy_Z0

Hope that helps-;)

If you use ubuntu you might want to install a more lightweight desktop like XFCE, otherwise your comp should run it fine with no real issues.
Ubuntu in general I can't recommend for other reasons but 1.66GHz 1GB RAM and an 80GB disk should be usable (though probably a little slow.)

Try Salix os.
With xfce
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salix_OS

http://www.salixos.org/

Linux Mint with XFCE may fit the bill -- it has the easy install of Ubuntu with things like Adobe Flash if you want them and worked OK (albeit slow) on this netbook with a 1.66GHz Atom and 1GB or RAM.

wow, tks for all the feedback; going with Precise Puppy ;-) Might try others if no luck...

Puppy is a very very specialized distro. It may or may not be close enough to your needs.

Get a version of ubuntu, debian that has a low resource window manager if you need to try to maintain work with ubuntu. Ubuntu site has a few good choices I think. If not lubuntu or xubuntu or the other one.

ack, couldn't get puppy linux or ubuntu 12.04.3 to work (tried to use Universal USB Installer to create bootable memory stick: the former was never recognized, the latter I couldn't figure out where the .iso file to put on the stick is/was). No worries, xp wurqs but sloooooow.

Unetbootin is available for Linux, Mac and Windows that will create a bootable USB with which ever Linux distro you choose. Here is the link to Unetbootin http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/

Lot of people has used it with good results.

Good luck to you

While that hard drive is on the small side (and so, probably a bit old, and so probably not all that fast), the only thing preventing you from having a full choice of distros, not just the small ones, is the quantity of ram. In addition, if you intend to run heavyweight applications, the ram will be a limitation - it will still be possible, but the speed might not be acceptable.

Upgrading the ram might be the best option.