My laptop is older it is a Toshiba with XP that is starting to show a lop of lack of support issues. I want to fully dump XP and replace with a full blown version of linux. Any advice on how to proceed and which version of linux to use.
This is a travel machine used mainly for email and web browsing, I need good owrd production and if any thing kinky I am into multi media authoring audio, video and utube production.

Thanks
Madfingers

My favourite, is Peppermint 4. I use it on a underpowered netbook and it flies.

Based on Lubuntu and Mint, it only uses 112 mob ram once it has booted up. Being Debian means there is a lot of compatible software as well.

Your laptop should perform well with this on.

Hth

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Without having any hardware information it is not possible for us to give you reasonable advice about distros.

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Hope this is what you mean:
Toshiba - Satellite
Intel(R)Core 2 CPU
T5500 @ 166 GHz
1.66 GHz 0.99 GB ram
XP 2002 Media Center Edition
Service Pack 3
148 GB Hard Drive.

I would recommend to upgrade the RAM of the system, but other than that there should be no limitation which distro you can run, though I would avoid the heavy desktop environments (GNOME 3, KDE, Unity) until you have upgraded the RAM.
You may want to try Ubuntu Studio, which comes with the lightweight XFCE desktop and a bunch of software for multimedia production.

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I normally make a usb install of a distro that can be booted from the usb on a different machine. Then clone it on the same usb. I boot one from the usb and clone the one not booted onto the laptop. Change the fstab to represent it's new location, add/change the bootloader to boot it. And you're off to the races. Or you could use the installers that come with most distros. Or run a liveCD image and mount the internal HDD as /home/. Lots of options if you're not a stranger to linux. The usb option gives you the opportunity to do something with what's on the HDD already before plowing it over in favor of new crops.


Toshiba is or was pretty good about linux compatibility. A laptop that old shouldn't have any non-existant drivers. Or well documented work arounds. Just have another machine or install around to query the interwebs for the questions you might have while mid-install.

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