[SOLVED] Would this PC Work with Linux? And What OS would be right for me?
 

Hi, i am a :newbie:, and i just found out that Linux is an operating system that you can download or buy. I thought that it came in a computer. Anyway, i have a stock Dell Inspiron 8100. Yes, old, i know. and i wanted to know if it would work with any type of Linux. I also just found out that there are different versions. Here is what i want in an OS:

Easy-medium high complicated GUI
I love the Mac OSX
I wanted to get Linux becuase i wanted to custimize my PC more
Needs to be cheap to free (Max i want is $5)
Needs to be the latest/best/best looking
I'm a sucker for sleek GUI's like Vista.

Thanx,
Swiftskii

Linux works on every computer. Even some cellphones and routers use linux.
But if you want to get a nice looking gui and the latest version of it's distribution, either they stopped developing the distribution, or I think you're out of luck since latest generally implies heavy on hardware, especially with eye-candy, and I don't think 64mb ram with a 32mb graphics card will do the trick. You could try Damn Small Linux, it's supposed to be light on resources.

Welcome to the forums. 99% of Linux distributions are FREE so you shouldn't have to pay anything. ;)

Take a look at Macpup. It is specifically designed for older hardware (based on the popular Puppy Linux) but is also sleek and beautiful.

http://www.macpup.org/

This page will tell you all about the many distros available. It can be a little overwhelming at first, so don't be afraid to try several until you find the one you like!

http://www.distrowatch.com/

Dude
i got 512 MB of ram and a great card.

Hey, those we're the values I obtained for your laptop on a google search that ended up here http://support.dell.com/support/edoc...cs.htm#1000450 and you said stock so it I assumed the minimum components (I thought 16 ram card was way too low). In that case most distributions should work fine.

It looks like your laptop meets the recommended specs for the latest version of Ubuntu (10.04), and someone gave Linux Mint 9 (Isadora) a "works perfectly" rating on an Inspiron 8100.

So the question is, will you choose Purple or Green?

Edited to add: It's worth pointing out that the standard Ubuntu and Mint (and, in fact, most other distros) installation disks are "live disks", allowing you to try them out without installing.

I recommend antiX-M8.5-i686, found here: http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Syste...iX-27857.shtml. You'll like the fact it's a Debiasn-based distro and that the forum as great support.

I run either it or the new Salix-lxde-13.1 on my oldder machines without problems. Only with greater than 512MB RAM would I go Mint-9-lxde and definitely not ubuntu with gnome or kubuntu with KDE.

Got red? Red is my Fave color!

Trying out a live cd before installing is a good thing. It will give you the opportunity to make sure the hardware all works as you want it to. Just a warning though: running a live disk will have a performance hit because everything needs to be accessed on the cd. There's nothing really wrong with this, but given that the OP is a newbie it should be pointed out that the speed of the system running from a live disk is not indicative of the speed of the system when installed on the hard drive.

I'd hate to see him run screaming from Linux because he thought it was too slow.

Your likely cost is one blank CD (I figure that's about 25 cents) plus the internet access cost to download the .iso file (most of us pay monthly so incremental download cost is zero).

I think your hardware is underpowered for that. I personally hate most of the "eye candy" anyway. But I hate it a lot more on old hardware where the eye candy slows everything down.

I don't know what you consider "sleek" and/or desirable about the Vista GUI.

I hate Vista because it too blatantly indicates its designers certainty that its users will be idiots. It works hard to stop me from doing most things I want to do because a typical idiot user would be making a mistake if doing something similar.

But GUI's are generally better in Windows than in Linux. KDE has the most full featured feel of Linux desktops (though initial defaults in Kubuntu seriously limit that). But even KDE will feel light on functionality if you're used to Windows.

Personally I prefer the ordinary user experience on XP to Vista or any Linux. But (especially on a home computer) when you factor in malware and the occasional brick wall lack of information (in closed source), overall I prefer Mepis Linux (8.0 or earlier). The extra margin of actually being in control of your own computer outweighs the powerful integration of desktop with file browser in XP and the significantly better right click support of XP desktop compared to KDE.

"A picture is worth a thousand words."

Maybe build GNOME Shell on Ubuntu 10.04 and run it, then install the Heat theme for it.

He's just talking about Ubuntu and Mint's default themes.

Note that unlike Windows, Linux's GUIs (I said it that way because the GUI is a separate program, not part of the OS, in Linux) are fully themeable. There are hundreds of themes to choose from online from many different people.

So no matter what you choose, you can download yourself a red theme.

256 MB of RAM? GNU/Linux will work. If you like Vista's GUI you probably might wanna try some distro with KDE. But this will be the hardest on computer resources. For example, Kubuntu. If you want your PC to run fast, try Linux Puppy. Debian is also fast and very proper.

And it won't cost you anything. Except a CD-R/CD-RW. You download the ISO-file and burn it on a CD. Then boot from it and install. But remember - Linux is not Windows.

Can you please rephrase that? My head is hurting trying to make sense of it. :p