worth the work to switch an old laptop over?
 

Greetings all,
figured I'd start out with one of the bigger dumb questions, and go from there.
I've always wanted to try linux out, but havent been comfortable trying to setup a dual boot on our (only) home sys without at least a little exp.
I recently got possession of an old laptop from a coworker. its a dell latitude p2 w/ a 6g hd and 192 m of ram and xp. (its also quite possibly the slowest thing I've ever played w/, lol)

I'm wondering if it'd be worth the effort to switch it over? I know hardware wise its a POS, and would hate to lose some of the programs it came with, but I also recognize it could be a good "learning toy"

the only things I would need to really use it for would be occasional web browsing, writing, watching/burning vids and once in a blue moon playing an older pc game (most recent being diablo 2)
Is there maybe a "stripped-down" version that I could look into? I could care less about bells and whistles.

So, ideas, opinions, etc?

Thanks
J

You know, sorry to say this but that box is basically a doorstop as is.

If you can stick some RAM in it (like, oh, 2G to 4G) and pop for a new hard drive (like, 250G or so) then you might be able to do something with it. You're talking something on the order of $30-$50 for a drive and roughly the same for some RAM (and get the right types of both).

An alternative might be to get a Knoppix live CD -- see http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html. That you can boot and run from the CD without installing anything just to see what's what. You can download Knoppix ISO and burn it on a CD or just order one. Your box is just barely in the system requirements:
Hope this helps some.

I wrote this back in 2009.

http://yatsite.blogspot.com/2009/07/...-old-gear.html

256MB of ram would be the sweet spot but I guess you could give AntiX a whirl with it.

Antix is what I would try if I was going to play with that laptop.

You arent going to get 2/4GB in any dell pentium II/III laptop. They were 1GB maximum, lots of models are 512MB max, and I suspect the OP has a Latitude CPi with 256MB RAM max-

http://docs.us.dell.com/support/edoc...ojav/specs.htm

Though I havent dug enough to find out for sure, I belive that the dell PII laptops all had the addressing 128GB limit.

If it runs an xp why not a Gnu/Linux? Certainly it does. I have tried to run Absolute Linux over an antique. Absolute Linux is a trimmed down derivative of Slackware. Just go for an older version. Check the links here.

It can deliver the goods to you. A matter of experience.

Rule: Get the year when your hardware came out into the market, and get the Absolute LInux version released about the same year: they should match in about one year or so --that's the rule I keep when installing older computers.

Good luck and hope that helps.

I recommend recycling that old computer (sorry) and taking Linux for a test drive on your more powerful computer. You can try it without making any changes to your computer in at least 2 different ways: first by running from a Live CD/USB, or second by using a "virtualization" tool such as VirtualBox.

Here are easy instructions for using Ubuntu on a fast modern computer without making any permanent changes to your existing Windows install: http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/virtualbox

What a bunch of pessimists! You've got a P2 and 192MB. That gives you a choice of
Antix: requires Pentium Pro & 64MB
Vector (Fluxbox version): Pentium Pro and 128MB
Archbang, Bodhi, Swift, ZevenOS Light: Pentium II and 128MB

I'd go for Antix, as you're over-specified (!) for that.

You can install Slitaz in that computer and it will have a decent speed. http://www.slitaz.org/en/
For sure you wont be able to play Diablo I dont think a Pentium 2 will have the power in their video card needed to play games. But for sure you will be able to surf the web, check your email and basic things.
I dont think you can add much ram, no 2GB for sure but Slitaz doesnt require too much to run. You should give it a try.

I'm not a pessimist--actually a huge optimist! Optimist in the advance of the hardware industry, every 18-24 months CPU technology doubles in a phenomenon called "Moore's law." New computers are not 2x faster or even 4x faster, but entire orders of magnitude faster, than the OP's pentium 2.

thanks for all the responses folks,

yep, its a POS, although I actually got diablo to run on it (i was surprised too.)

tronayne: I'd no idea about about knoppix (I've read the name somewhere, but beyond that...), will have to check into that angle. I'm guessing thats one of the approaches snowpine was referring to? (and I will also be checking out the virtualbox:))

rokytnji: I will check that out soonest.*edit* just read the first page, would it be cool if I pm you a few unrelated laptop questions?

malekmustaq:I get your point, but just to clarify, if the hardware is for instance '99, you should shoot for a 2k version? what sort of window is there, 1-3 years-ish?

And finally, wow, my ignorance is hanging out, I though as a rule most of the "name brand/box" laptops were proprietary setups to resist non company mods.

Thanks for all the info folks, I'll have more q's as soon as I learn a bit more.

J

Diablo 2 doesnt require much, and should run on most Pentium II systems-

https://us.battle.net/support/en/art...m-requirements

IMO dont go for an older version.

Why muck around with the harder OS setup from years ago, and have an unsupported release as well, when you can get current distros that will run on that hardware?

Rule: if you are ever considering hooking it up to the internet, dont use an unsupported distro/release.

I cant know for sure, but it looks like Absolute Linux only dates back to 2006/2007, and that hardware dates back to 1997-2000 or so.

Hardware support tends to get better over time, not worse. A 2012 distro will in most cases have better hardware support than a 2007 release.

If you don't already know UNIX or Linux, or some *NIX, then it's a waste of time on a PII lappy. For 75.00USD you can get a 1.8 Ghz. Core2Duo/100GB/2GB/ which is going to be a lot less painful and frustrating. I know it's nice to make something good out of a landfill candidate, but command-line only 'print server' is all I can come up with for a PII lappy.

Although, I confess, I still have a PII desktop, somewhere.

Sent you a friend request and befriended you so we could pm each other. So yeah, it would be cool to pm me on unrelated laptop questions.

ok, cool....
(warning: ignorance alert!) now I just have to figure out how to pm here. I've looked for half of forever, but the option isn't anywhere I would expect it.
...having said that, I'm sure it'll be pointed out to be somewhere completely obvious that I have somehow overlooked

Thanks again all,
J

badlandsghost, the good news is that you haven't missed anything. The bad news is that this site only allows PMs after you have reached 150 posts.