Slackware is definitely an option - but it would require much more learning than Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, Ubuntu, openSUSE, or Debian - with doing things such as installing only without an X GUI and using commands to manually partition the hard disk.

I haven't used Wubi in a few years, but after looking at this guide (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/WubiGuide), it seems that all you need to do for 14.04 is burn the Ubuntu ISO to a DVD and then run Wubi.exe. I also tried the net Wubi installer that downloads the ISO and ran into trouble, so the DVD approach may be the nest for you. Note that once you install Wubi, Ubuntu will probably run a bit slower than a regularly partitioned install.

Another option if Wubi is too much of a hassle is Virtualization. You can run Linux in a window on your Windows machine with software that emulates a computer. You can do that by going to virtualbox.org, install VirtualBox, making a new Virtual Machine, and pointing it to the Ubuntu ISO to make an Ubuntu vm.

You have a good attitude towards this.

OK, I stand corrected.

Well, the box is basically a doorstop without at least a gig, methinks, and might have problems getting out of its own way even with 1- or 1.25G.

Ah, well.

Everybody already covered everything on the 1200.

So my 2 cents is this is my IBM T23 Pentium 3 laptop after bumping the ram on it with 2 512MB sticks of ram.

http://www.imagebam.com/image/d42087399845932

http://www.imagebam.com/image/a4eda1399845936

and my Panasonic P4 CF-48 laptop after a 1 gig stick bumped the ram to 1.2 gig.

http://oi49.tinypic.com/35hlfux.jpg

Conky shows 880MB but that is wrong. They both sit on the shelf for when company comes over and needs a laptop for what ever.

and Puppy did not, (and still does not as dual booter), run bad on that cf-48 either

http://oi40.tinypic.com/epeip1.jpg

But to each their own. I imagine your daughter might like the woof woof greeting her on desktop loadup, or not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LyHr-yGtTSw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIN3AL03_Yc >>>>>we are now on AntiX 15. Based on Debian Jessie

#################

Bohdi is cool to and is based on ubuntu and runs a E17 which is not too hard on 1 gig of ram

Durn. No Bohdi in the screencasts section (hint,hint)

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...reenshots-114/

soooooooo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRJaIhkG1RQ

So what I am saying. If Ubuntu is your druthers. Bohdi may be that sweet spot for that Dell antique.

I am not having fun with this, sorry to say. I burned the dvd iso disk of Ubuntu 32 bit 14.04 LST. I closely followed all the instructions for installing it in the 8600 (32 bit, 2gb RAM) laptop with XP. Got to the point where, upon booting, it asked if I wanted to run XP or Ubuntu. I chose Ubuntu. It went through a lengthy install process and eventually got to a purplish screen with cross-hatching, that I took to be the Ubuntu desktop. Occasionally, two folders would flash in the upper left hand corner. One said "examples," the other said, "install Ubuntu." Neither stayed on the screen long enough for me to do anything with them, and they would eventually just disappear. Then the screen would flash back and forth between the purplish screen and a black screen. I uninstalled and reinstalled three or four times, same thing every time. Due to what seems like a video issue, I am suspecting that there is a problem playing nice with the Nvidia driver. Is this a possibility? Should I install some other driver? If so, what? Also, while burning out with this, I decided to download Linux Mint Cinnamon, 32 bit, to see if I'd have more luck with that. It doesn't appear to come with a Wubi type app, so when I burned the iso image dvd disk, there is no way to run it as far as I can tell. How do I get this thing to install? I'm getting a little frustrated with all this, but not ready to give up. I like a good challenge, but I don't always have days and days of free time to devote to all this trial and error curve of learning. I go to lots of websites, reading, trying to learn what to do and how to do it, and try as I might, nothing seems to be working. I am anticipating that there is going to be a fairly big learning curve with Linux once I can finally get an installation to work properly, but damn, I can't get even get through the installation. Can someone please help????

Odd, the nv30 family (FX Go5200 that should be in your laptop) is supported by the open source nouveau driver.

Do you have any small (2-4 GB) USB key drives you can try? The 8600 DID support USB booting, so it would be a lot faster trying it from a USB key if it fails, and if it succeeds it's going to install a lot faster.

Try various options! The advantage with GNU/Linux is that it encourages you to do so. Install multiple distroes on multiple machines, experiment and find out which ones you like best. Almost all GNU/Linux distributions are cross compatible with each others in most areas, so using different ones is not an issue.

I can suggest 5 that you should try:
Mageia
Mint KDE
Debian
Ubuntu
Slackware

In addition you should try to see which desktop environments you like best, and try various options. Personally I prefer KDE. Try these:
KDE
Gnome
Enlightenment
Blackbox or Openbox

..and there are many more to try.

Probably you want to find a good distro with many packages and where software is easy to manage and update. Find out how you best like that between the various distributions above.

On the older computer, perhaps Slackware is the best option with Enlightenment as a desktop environment. Enlightenment can be set in many funny themes and looks quite different from other desktops. Best of all, its lightweight.

Good luck.

The GEForce FX Go5200 is exactly what I have, so based on what you are saying, that shouldn't be the problem. Funny you should mention the USB boot, because that was the way I originally tried doing the install, but I was getting nowhere with that. After researching, it seemed logical that the iso dvd burn disk was a good way to go and actually seemed safer, based on what I read, since it seemed that the possibility existed the windows OS might get corrupted doing it that way. Don't know for sure, to be honest. The disk seemed like it was pretty idiot proof, but apparently not. I suspect it is something in the computer that I am not aware of, interfering with the install process. I'm kind of laughing that this is all not as easy as I thought it might be. I'm sticking with it though, and not giving up yet. I know everyone doesn't have these problems. Just grabbing at straws with the display adapter, so I am kind of clueless what else it could be. Still working on trying to install the Linux Mint too and not getting anywhere. I went with the Ubuntu install because based on what I had read, it was the "easiest" install to do using the Wubi app. Ha! Not for me! I'm checking on the Linux Mint forums too for how to solve that problem, but if anyone has any other possible solutions for the problem with Ubuntu install, please let me know. Thanks!

If you decide to move away from Ubuntu base distro's, I have had fantastic success with Mageia. My first love is proper Debian, but given how new you are, that might be imposing (although in reality very easy), and I've had better luck with Debian working on hardware than Ubuntu (although that might be because Debian has been my primary OS for around 10 years now).

More confused now. I thought I'd read that Ubuntu is Debian. Fedora is Red Hat. In my selection process, it seemed that there were two main types of Linux: Red Hat and Debian, with lots of other variations of each, Mageia and Ubuntu being variations of Debian. I went with a Debian based OS because of what I read over Red Hat. Easier installation, etc. Learning that there are much slimmer versions of Debian, I'm ok with going with something way easier than Ubuntu. Perhaps I am trying to reach too high initially, and maybe way easier everything is more recommended for me anyway since I am a newbie. Again, I am anxious to just get to a point where I can get into any Linux OS to start playing with it. I know I will love it, and I so desperately want to get as far away from MS as possible. Well, I still haven't made any progress with Linux Mint or Ubuntu, so maybe I should go ahead and try Mageia now. What the heck. Perhaps I'll eventually end up with Puppy at this rate.

Ubuntu takes a snapshot of Debian testing, then Ubuntu-izes it. While it's based on Debian, there's actually very little Debian left beyond package managers once it's released as Ubuntu.

Mageia is a fork of a now discontinued OS called MAndriva, formerly Mandrake, which was a fork of very early Red Hat. Not in any way associated with Debian or Ubuntu.

For running as a portable distro, there's not too much that IMO can compete with Puppy. As a portable (rather than just live) distro, puppy has exceptional performance, a good selection of programs, and excellent hardware compatibility.

Ubuntu is actually geared towards newbies, but in my experience, they're geared towards newbies that have newer hardware. Ubuntu on older hardware I have heard of a lot of issues with. As for "easier", Debian actually isn't. It does require a bit more work to get up and running than Ubuntu. However, I have never found VITAL hardware that I absolutely COULD NOT get working with Debian (sure, little things like scanners, webcams, but nothing essential). The thing is, I have 10 years of experience with Debian, so am completely comfortable installing it with text mode only, then working on getting the graphics adapter to function correctly. This is not something most new users will want to do, as it appears quite daunting.

Thanks for the clarification Timothy. I remember reading what you said about Mageia. If I went for broke and put Ubuntu on my newest HP Pavilion G6, I'd probably be good to go in a heartbeat. But I'm worried about the possibility of something happening to this computer in the process. If one of the older computers dies doing this, I'm not so concerned. But, I am learning even going through all this process, and now realize that Ubuntu is not the way to go with the older machines. Maybe not even Linux Mint either. So maybe I should go ahead and try Mageia. What the heck. You seem to be very happy with it, and my older machines are at least ten years or so old by now. Can you please recommend the easiest way to install that OS. I mean, I can search for the OS and follow whatever the recommended method is, but in doing that, I've not had luck thus far, so knowing that I am a newbie, is there anything I should watch out for, or is clunky? I definitely am not tech savvy enough to be doing text mode only then working on getting the graphics adapter to work. But in the meantime, I feel like I am zeroing in closer on what would be the more proper OS to be using on these older computers, which is good to know. It's helping.

I have had some older machines that don't take Ubuntu's Unity 3D very well, so trying something else, perhaps trying something that is not so 3D flashy such as MATE (the nicest), LXDE, or XFCE. My older computer with similar firepower and a wiley graphics card runs pretty well with MATE. If push comes to shove, you can just virtualize Linux to start learning it.

Mageia with MATE wouldn't be a bad idea. I was about to reccomend openSUSE, but they might be dropping 32-bit support soon. Fedora's MATE Spin, Ubuntu MATE or LinuxMint with MATE wouldn't be bad ideas either for your middle computer and your 1200 with upgraded RAM.

There's a lot to learn about Linux and I can tell you that it is very easy to get frustrated by it. If I may offer my opinion here...

Dell Inspiron 1200 is too old to make it easy for your first learning experience. It would be the best thing to put this computer on hold until you have a better understanding of Linux in general. But do come back to it at a much later date and install an older distro (like maybe Slackware 10 or 11, just don't hook up to internet, this is discontinued and way outdated). It's like a trip through a museum. Or install a very lightweight distro.

I would suggest using the Dell Inspiron 8600 as your 'beat up' computer or your learning platform. Reading from your posts, I think you already did this. Do install more RAMs on it as suggested. Transfer all important things off it to your newest computer and use it to explore the different distros and learning how to install and use them. I suggested doing this for a long while before doing anything to your newest computer. You will fall and you will make mistakes. It's how we learn. We're still humans after all.

And then, when you have learned more about Linux and have your favorite set of distros thus far, you can then move on to your Windows 7 HP Pavilion.

Just go through the variety of distros on your beat up computer. You'll get a better feel of Linux this way. It's like sampling beers: no one can tell you what your favorite beer will be. ;-)

This is exactly what I am trying to do. EXACTLY! I have three laptops. The 1200 is the beater, obviously. Very old and underpowered. But, I am trying to set it up with LInux for my very smart 3-year old. I don't ever want her exposed to MS and think it is the greatest thing. I want her to start out free range. She'll to to kindergarten and laugh at the kids and teachers using MS. HA! The 8600 is the main thing that I am working right now. Not old enough or underpower enough to be a joke, but hefty enough that it should handle something fairly easily, and it is the next best computer. Even if I crash it, I don't care. I can fix it. So right now, I've been jumping through hoops trying to find what will even work with it. I feel confident that eventually I can put Ubuntu or almost anything on my HP, but you're right, I don't want to risk that right now. I want to get something running on the 8600 that I can play with and learn with. When I feel good about that, I'll probably put Slackware on the 1200 and start teaching it to my daughter. It doesn't have to be able to go online. She is going to learn computing right. After all that, then yes, the HP is going to be rocking with open source software. I can't wait. I have been wanting to go open source for years, but wanted to wait until things got easier and there were more apps written for it. I think it is about there now. Plus, I don't like the trends I am seeing MS heading in since it tried forcing 10 on everyone, and they are trying to take more and more control of my computer, like I just rent the software from them. I'm done with it. I spit on it.

Just so everyone knows too, I was trying Linux Mint Cinnamon while trying to figure out what to do with Ubuntu. I discovered that I can't run the latest, 17, on the 8600. Someone suggested using 13 (Maya) instead since the cpu is x86. Apparently that makes a difference beyond simply 32 or 64 bit. Didn't know that. So, I learned a lot today from everybody. Thanks! I think ultimately Ubuntu will go on my HP and should run just fine. After I try Maya on the 8600, I should be up and running and playing merrily in free range of open source, and as soon as I get comfy with that, I'll be teaching my daughter how to use Slackware and ultimately, Linux. It was a frustrating day, but I learned a lot.

Another thing I would like to know is, when researching online, I thought I kept seeing that Linux uses a lot of coding for commands, kind of like DOS used to be. Is that correct? Do I need to start learning the "language" for that? I know, showing my age here, but never too old to learn. Also, if this is the case, can someone direct me to where I can get some insight on that?

Thanks again everybody!!!!

That would be command line interface(CLI) or shell. The (sort of) equivalent Linux name for DOS would be BASH (the most common one, there are other shells). You don't have to know it, you can get by with GUI, but it is highly recommended to learn CLI. It'll come in very handy for a lot of things (Linux is kind of two-faces on its interfaces). There are tons of tutorials on this online.

Here's one to start you off:

http://linuxcommand.org/lc3_lts0010.php

Good luck! :-)