Hello newbie here, have an older DELL c521 I want to do a split pc, half winxp, half linux distro. need it for surfing web, viewing youtube vids, crackle, hulu. DOnt download music, maybe once in a blue moon buy something online too. Dont need alot of bells, whistles etc. But do want a fast internet browser. Mine is so very very very slow. It has a 80gb hard drive. 1.87ghz,maybe 1.5 gb ram, and I want something that wont get slowed down by all the blasted anti virus, anti rootkit apps I use now. Always getting stuff online from browsing. Hate it. Any ideas much appreciated. so far, PINGUY looks mighty good, a few others too, but dont recall names of them. any help would be nice...thanks...graybeard19 in st joe mo..usa

Welcome to LQ! The computer is fine for Linux: the one I'm using has a 32-bit processor and rather less memory.

Try a couple of live disks to see what you prefer. Linux comes with a variety of GUIs: two different distros can look like two different operating systems at first sight.

I found Pinguy a bit slow on an older computer. Linux Mint is always a good choice, and PCLinuxOS is good for the beginner as well.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...p/product/2188
http://www.linuxquestions.org/review...p/product/2559

Welcome!
I like AntiX for very old computers. CrunchBang and SliTaz are also very popular.

Hi. I like Puppy Linux or (spin off) Fatdog64 for 64-bit as light dostros (not that you need light) my signatures first link has more suggestions, have fun.

I agree puppy linux make that fast I prefer the Slacko puppy it is based on slackware and is very stable.

I have not tried Slacko Puppy yet but like Slackware. Is Puppy based on it or just older versions, currently it only says "Puppy Linux is based on GNU/Linux. It is completely free and open source software."?

You can start by having a look at the Web site http://distrowatch.com/.
If you have never used Unix or Linux before, it is probably better to start with PcLinuxOS, Mint or Mageia.
Be careful to check how much memory is needed by the installer (usually it is 512Mb). Then, all you have to
do is download an iso image and put it on a DVD-R using Nero or a similar program. At boot time, you will
have to go to the BIOS to select boot from DVD and follow the installer instruction. Typically, you could
split your disk into 20GB for Windows XP, 10GB for your / partition, 3GB of swap (if you want to hibernate),
the rest for the /home partition. There is also the possibility of installing from USB.
Once you have completed the installation, you will have to choose your graphical desktop. A good choice to
spare the computer memory (and have good speed) is XFCE or LXDE. For a fast browser, you could install Google Chrome.
If you are already familiar with Unix, you should consider Slackware and use either XFCE or one of the windowmanagers.

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Personally I would go with Puppy Linux (I prefer Slacko) or Vector Linux. I am currently running Vector Linux standard on a system quite a bit older and with a lot less memory than you have (768 meg) and it works well.

Very very VERY discouraged at the amt of work it takes to load these distros...I love the idea of LINUX vs win xp. Makes a lot of sense. However...I have spent nearly 12 hrs today, loading the following Ubuntu 12.04, Mint cinnamon,slitax, Pinguy12.04, now these I have tried in the following ways. I went and downloaded something called unetbootin. Ok this says you can download a distro, thru this program, then it tells you REBOOT....go thru all that, F12, boot from Unetbootin...always some msg about not having some way of translating for lack of techno jargon, iso to usb or something like that...so I finally after nearly 8 hrs of mind numbing stuff getting my wifes USB flash drive, unload it, and start loading PINGUY 12.04, this time I get this program called ISO TO USB first hand and reboot after it takes another hour or so to load onto usb flash drive....dumdumdum..drum roll.....Ok I figure,,,now it will happen like all of those slick videos that show it flawlessly being uploaded and voila, I got linux....well, not so....keep getting errors in loading msgs...I even loaded it from the official PINGUY website....so,,,,now what do I do? I am not trained in all this techno jargon, techno abilities...just an old fat 60 yr old disabled airforce vet who wants something to search the web without win xp....help, I am really discouraged and dont want to try this for the next 4 months til the pc freezes from all the jimmying with it...any help etc would be much appreciated....OH BY THE WAY>>>>no usable cd/dvd drive on this dell pc of crap....it shot craps..time to take it to woods with my mossberg and put it out of its misery with a deer slug....still have pinguy 1204 on flash, so maybe something still can be done???????

I forgot to thank all of you fine folks for trying to help me with this. I am sorry I sounded so disgusted with all the distro advice and all, truly appreciate everyones opinions and suggestions. Trouble is, I am not really all the pc literate, dont have the skills apparently for loading LINUX, or at least it seems that way at present. Gonna look for a cheap, or used cheap DVD/CD burner, reader whatever they are called and go that route, the usb seems to me to be a no go. But again, thanks for all the suggestions and for your help. I gotta say this for the LINUX community, seems like a fine group of folks who are more than willing to help and give their experise and how to fix ideas. I imagine, once I get a dvd/cd drive that I will be alot further along towards downloading my pinguy12.04, maybe the mint cinnamon????? at any rate thanks again folks, will keep ya posted..have a great wkend...graybeardl9 near kc mo.

It's cool I still remember my first time finding (knew it from the movie Hackers) Linux-(HR6 3-ISOs I didn't know it at the time because they were in .ace files and I couldn't open them, not that I would have known what an .iso was) on CDs my uncle gave me off of newsgroups from old archives he was cleaning out he gave me over a hundred disks and it took me a month to find the right .txt file to figure out how to open a .nfo as I did not have Google wound up back at his house a lot and the library, best book they had was the Linux-Bible (with hands on ISOs) so to make a long story short time marches on and if you want or need you learn, Rome was of course not destroyed in a day... I have not used USB much but these links look good to start from searching: 'usb distribution': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_USB and http://www.linuxliveusb.com/en/supported-linuxes Please don't shoot your computer. A CD\DVD drive wouldn't hurt (of course I like having pillars of disks around now building Rome back up in Blu-rays)?

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I have finally calmed down now, late at night and found a good dvd/cd burner, a samsung for about $18 so I can handle that, and install it, then download the pinguy, burn the cd, reload it onto the pc and go from there. Gonna print all those nice how to pgs for Pinguy12.04 on the web. and refer to it after doing the cd burn. That should help. i was just in a hurry and wanted to have something new for my dell pc o xxxx pc. When I get the cd installed, burned and loaded it should be a snap, leastwise I sure hope so. Pinguy looks really good. got all the bells and whistles, fully loaded for 'bear' and no techno stuff involved...ready out of the box as they say. Good place for a rank newbie such as myself to start with LINUX....sad thing is...no kidding here,,real story. At the local library 2 yrs back, they had a book sale, took my father n law to it...saw that they had 4 pc that were identical to mine,,,dell c521, same specs etc. mouse, keyboard, nice monitor, whole sheebang...all for $25a piece, each., but they were loaded with LINUX....so not knowing what the heck that was, i passed on it. these were nice pcs too....not all beat up...nice ones...80gb hard drives and all. OH, brother, would I go back in time and snag all of em now...you betcha!

Bummer. Thrift stores by me don't have PCs anymore now they have deals to call second hand PC shops, ticks me off because I use-to buy them all (not to tick off the next guy but) to put Linux on them and sell them still dirt cheep to kids at school; A few mouths ago I bought an iMac G3/500MHz having to explain to the lady at her rummage it wasn't a T.V. to see if she wanted more than $15 luckily she didn't. Keeping it as a stereo in another room ♬♪♭♫♩

Here's an option to install ubuntu from windows. It a little outdated, but I assume you can upgrade after you install.
http://www.ubuntu.com/download/deskt...u-with-windows

I must warn you though ubuntu isn't one of the faster distros, I don't know what the system requirements are, but ubuntu may be on the slow side for your pc. The reason I show you this is because you can install it from within windows and this should be easier for you.

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Don't get discouraged! Learning Linux is not a trivial task, so be patient and don't expect to be an expert overnight. Additionally, installing on old busted hardware presents challenges of its own.

I see you live near Kansas City; did you know there is a Linux User Group that meets there (in the library) every 2 weeks? They have an "installfest" scheduled for Nov 6 at 6:30, you could bring your computer down and have someone assist you in person: http://www.kclug.org/

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