Yes, I meant installing the distro. I had the impression that you perceived the installation procedure as a cumbersome step to make. So it might be worth making sure that the distro you are installing plays nice with the hardware before going through that effort, rather than finding out after the fact and having to start over with a different OS.

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Gotcha. Thanks.

I had one additional thought. The new,more powerful, computer also had a problem. A MS tech was "helping" me delete these files that were very hard to delete and in the process the Chrome browser stopped working properly. That wouldn't have anything to do with me using it if I single boot it to Linux, right?

Gregg Bell,

As I understand it, you are going to wipe the drive on the newer AMD computer.

In that case previous files and the Chrome browser etc on XP will be deleted anyway. They cannot possibly affect your new Linux installation.

When you reach the partitioning stage, choose "Something Else" and then "Create a New Partition Table".

I suggest that you create a 3 primary partition installation along these lines:

root (/) 10000MB Primary partition formatted as ext4

swap (linux swap) 2000 MB Primary (not formatted)

home (/home) Remainder of drive, approx 70000MB Primary partition formatted as ext4

Further info:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/35676...your-linux-pc/

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The newer one has more cores and probably faster RAM. And likely a better graphics card. I have a dell i1150 with a 2.8GHz P4, but it's only one core, 32 bit, 0.5GB of RAM, and intel graphics (generations before they had 3D stuffs). It's an okay machine until you want to do anything full screen. I mostly use it for youtube videos and hulu when I'm doing other things on the main box.

They're both perfectly usable machines. I'm also using said i1150 as the wireless dongle for my raspberry pi B. The 2.8GHz is mildly better for audio synthesis as I can lock the CPU down to max with cpufreq. Which avoids a lot of would be issues with jack when the cpu frequency throttles on other machines. My hp stream 11 which is my main laptop at the moment seems to mostly ignore the cpufreq "suggestions". Plus requires a very recent kernel to have all the parts work.

I'd say use them both, you'll find uses for each as you need them. It's always nice to have a second machine to keep you browsing the web while doing a clean install on the other one. Or if you need the occasional bridging (ethernet -> wireless) and don't want to mess with the main rig.

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Thanks beachboy. Will do. But why will I be doing that?

Thanks Shadow. What's funny is I have like three of these old Dells as backups. (When my office heard MS was phasing out XP they gave me all the computers.) I got the newer one because they were having problems with it.

Gregg Bell,

Simply because it is necessary to partition the hard drive of the AMD computer in order to install Xubuntu or another Linux distro.

The 3 partition setup is pretty standard.

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But not obligatory...

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Er, sounds like a little conflicting information there. "It is necessary" "but not obligatory." If you guys were lawyers I could understand but assuming your not, what gives?

The 3 partition layout separates the system (the / partition) from the user data (the /home partition). And of course there is the swap partition for the case that you run out of RAM. This is for Linux users a quite common setup that lets you reinstall the system, if necessary, without touching user data and configurations.

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I'll be sure to do it then. Thanks!

Consider the swap space as a "backup reserve" when your computer runs out of memory. When swap is available, it can use this space (which will significantly slow it down) to avoid freezing completely. This is optional but highly recommended.

As far as the separate partition for /home is concerned, that is a matter of taste. I typically like to have all the configuration wiped and start over freshly when I reinstall my system. So I pull the configuration I really know I want to reuse (e.g. mail and web browser) selectively from a backup copy after installing the base system.

For the real user data I create a separate partition mounted at /srv/data with a symlink that points from /home/myuser/data to that directory. (In fact my setup is slightly more complex but you get the point.)
That way, the data partition really only contains data and is not polluted by hidden files that some software package thought should go into my home folder.
Again, that's a matter of taste.

Anyway, what this boils down to: Don't think too much about the swap part. Just create a 2GB swap partition and forget it exists. As for the rest, just make a decision whether or not you want to separate the data from the base system.

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Thanks joe. Esp. for the "Don't think too much..." advice. I think I've been over-complicating things. It's all good to know mind you, but without the base knowledgeable to help in understanding it can be very confusing.

You definitely want swap on older machines with low RAM. The apps don't seem to be getting any lighter. I have an SDHC reader on my hp stream 11 that doesn't seem to be bootable, so I keep a 16GB SDHC card in there and use it as swap.

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