I am pretty sure I could do dual booting, but would this computer be a good candidate for it capacity-wise etc? I'd be dual booting with Xubuntu 15.10. Thanks.

P.S. I know there would be a zillion better computers but this one would fit my budget and since it's refurbished if it's DOA I won't be crushed.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...83158458-S2A2A

Intel Dual Core 2.7 GHz - not sure what CPU it is but I suspect this is one of those which have no proper power saving.

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I'd want at least 4GB RAM. If you can customize it by adding RAM, I think it would work quite nicely.

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Probably an E5400 (one of the only dual core non-hyperthreaded processors Intel ever made that fast, and by far the most numerous). Not a horrible processor for it's day, and will be just fine for basic tasks, but you're not going to do any 3d gaming on it, or graphics design and such.

However, for basic usage, yeah, that will be just fine. I'd second frank in that 4 GB would be better, although 2 GB it's tolerable (using a 2 GB laptop right now with full KDE4 on it and it runs quite nicely).

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Hi Gregg...

My desktop system is a Dell Inspiron 531S, which I don't think is too far off of the one you mentioned, "spec" wise. I have an AMD Athlon X2 dual core processor and 2 GB's of memory. While I couldn't tell you about Xubuntu, my system runs Lubuntu just fine. I doubt the system you linked to would run anything much heavier than that very well. Since the onboard graphics chip is Intel, it won't do anything high end in that department.

The system you linked to can accept up to 8 GB's of memory total. As frankbell has mentioned, upgrading it to at least 4 GB's is highly recommended. This will be especially important down the road if you decide to upgrade to newer versions of Xubuntu, which may very well require more system resources.

Hope this helps...

Regards...

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Dual booting does not use more RAM.
The most important requirement for dual booting is you should have enough hard disk space
You can divide the hdd into
100 gb for windows.
4 gb for swap
rest(160-100-4=56)56 gb for linux
The space required for Linux OS installaton will be given in their official Usually with GUI, 30 gb partition will be more than enough.I usually give 100 gb because I store a lot of movies in my linux partition.

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Thanks for the great feedback and advice. What I'm thinking is they often have 4GB Dells for around $99. If I want to dual boot I can wait for one of those.

And the $69 one I can get and I can just use it on it's own. (And switch the cables to my Xubuntu.)

You know, there's very few things I need Windows for. In fact, there's nothing I need Windows for. It would just make things easier to have it. (Like Wine only makes ADE 1.7.2 work and there's an ADE 4.something.) It's just so cheap and you get Windows 7, which is not bad compared to Windows 8 and up.

Part of me thinks I want it just because it's so cheap.

---------- Post added 10-21-15 at 05:14 PM ----------

You make it sound so easy! Thanks.

You may get your money back if you put the Windows license on eBay. A few years ago I got myself an i5 Thinkpad from eBay (leased and returned, called refurbished) for $200. It had some sort of Vista license. I peeled it off and put it back to the eBay ... got $50 ...

This would be illegal, especially if the copy of Windows is OEM, not retail. These versions are non-transferable. If I understand correctly, the copy of Windows is tied to the motherboard. If the motherboard goes out, then that copy of Windows "dies" as well. Please see here under "Transfer of License"--->"Can my customers transfer or sell their OEM software licenses?"

Regards...

A 160 GB would be more than sufficient to dual boot. 100 for Windows and 80 GB for whatever your linux of choice is plenty. I have Debian w/ KDE including KDE games, gimp, darktable all installed on a machine that has only a 32 GB SSD, and even after allocating 4 GB for swap, have 10 GB+ free space.

eBay is very careful and they allow this, if there is a piece of hardware bundled, like a dead hard drive.

It also depends on condition. If the device is never booted to Windows by the end user to accept the terms and conditions, then by the absolute letter of the law you are permitted to resell OEM licenses. If it's been used, then no, you are no longer permitted. Usually it's easier to just assume it's NOT legal to sell it, however.

Hi...

I don't think Microsoft does, though, according to their FAQ.

Regards...

Not that I care much, but how could the Thinkpad seller sell me the laptop claiming there is a fresh Vista install never booted and I cannot sell the never booted hard drive (cough) with license?

Because it was leased. Which means it was used, thus booted up and therefore the terms & conditions had been accepted. Legally speaking, no, it wasn't legal to sell that OEM license as it had been booted before with the original owner. Unless it was purchased with a NEW OEM license (not the original, which is highly doubtful unless it originally came with XP when first sold), once it's booted and used by the first end user, that license is LEGALLY locked to the motherboard.