yeah i am a noobie and i am probably going to get a bunch of flames for this one but how do you uninstall windows and install linux and what are the specs to run this operating sys like how many hz your processor has to have how much ram you should have, yank,yank,yank.........

no flames... first, you don't have to "uninstall windows", I'm guessing you haven't chosen your distrobution of linux yet, if i were you, i'd go with either Redhat 8 or 9(not available yet for free) or Mandrake 9.1, they are both very easy to install and work with, especially Mandrake. Just download the ISOs (basically CDs copied into a single file), burn the ISOs onto CDs (neo is good for this in windows), and reboot your computer with the first CD in your CD-ROM, it will take you from there. It will redo your hard drive for you.

Or, you could buy Redhat 8 at Best Buy (i think it is still there, i heard 9 will be there next week), I've seen Mandrake at Walmart(i actually bought 8.1 there...) or there are some nice sites that only charge like $5 to send you the ISOs burned onto disks(if you have a slow connection or don't want the hassle).

For system requirements, at least 233 mhz for your processor, at least 1 GB harddrive for both the distros i mentioned, at least 128 megs ram, and....that should be about it.

Just to be clear about Windows. You have two options -- one is to get rid of Windows as you suggested, and one is to keep Windows and use it on the same computer as Linux (each installed in its own area of your hard drive).

If you want to get rid of Windows, just boot up a Linux CD when you're ready to install. As part of the install process, you will use a disk-partitioning program like Disk Druid, which will show you your existing partition(s). One of these will say FAT(32) or NTFS -- that one's your Windows partition. If you really want to get rid of Windows, just delete that partition.

If you want to keep Windows and use it alongside Linux, that's no problem, and it might be a good idea for someone who's just starting out with Linux (in case you want to get some work done while you're still learning your way around a new OS). Just search these forums for the term "dual-boot" and you'll find lots of help.

I agree with Dave's recommendation to set up your system as a dual boot initially. Personally I felt it made the transition from Win[whatever] to Linux smoother, plus it permits you to make a gradual transition from Win to Linux at your own pace. Once you're comfortable that you don't really need Win or MS anymore (for me, I needed about 3 or 4 weeks of overlap till I really felt comfortable) you can then safely drop the Windows partition.

Anyway, before jumping directly into the Linux installation, I'd recommend first defragging your drive, and then resizing it *prior* to installing Linux. In my opinion there are 2 reasons for this: first, the defrag will probably result in more open contiguous space, and therefore you can allocate a larger partition to Linux than you could without the defrag; and second, when I was installing Linux, I wanted to concentrate on actually installing Linux rather than to be distracted by hardware considerations.

For me, this approach worked pretty well. By the way a really nice resizing/partitioning tool is called BootIT NG, from TeraByte, although I am sure there are others.

Lastly, I'd agree with Boonders suggestion about RedHat. The installation process went smooth as silk, plus its appearance resembles Windows sufficiently that it's pretty easy to get up to speed very quickly. That being said, I should also say that once you've gained a basic understanding of Linux, check out Slackware. Slack rocks. -- JW

1 members found this post helpful.

hey alright these are all good i deas and the like yes unfortunately i have been running around all night like an idiot(i hav esome sort of sleep disorder) and i installed the kernel for minix on this old pentium 100mhz pooter with 32 mb ram and like a 4gig hdd and another little hard drive and i need to get the tar file i downloaded on a floppy because i need that in order to get the cdrom working and telnet and heperterm working and what not so yeds i alredy removed the windows on this computer jsut to fuck around i mean i am not using my main computer for this , i am just experimenting withthis junking before i take the plunge and hey you gotta walk before you can run so any help now for a raw dat writer that will give a better interface on getting a tar archive on a bunch of floppies please stand up help me out thanx sorry anyone with who thinks i am a tard i am learning but quickly

If you want to run Linux on the pentium you mention in your last post I suggest you drop the big distros (they probably won't install with 32mb ram) and look for something less multimedia and more gutsy like Slackware, Debian or even Gentoo (for extra geek factor )...

ok help me out then give me a good start up disk and an iso and some very for dummies instructions

If you want to try the Debian route, just go here and follow the instructions: http://www.debian.org/distrib/floppyinst

Hi! I'm another Newbie about to try out Linux for the first time. My first goal is to build myself a fast, bullet-proof machine to do nothing but display slides through a variety of computer projectors. I build my Powerpoint presentations on a Vista machine running Powerpoint 2007, and want to move them via thumb drive to my presentation laptop. For this I have an old Compaq Armada M300 with a Pentium II and 128MB RAM, and an INtel 82371AB/EB PCI to USB Host Controller (I think running USB 1.0?), and a 6GB HD.

My plan is to totally remove Windows (currently has Windows 95 -- shows you how old it is), install only Linux and the necessary presentation software, and use it as my presentation machine.

Looks like the posts here will be a great starting point; so I'll study them before I burden you kind people with questions.

Thanks for allowing me to join this excellent forum.

dstuart1

Jumping into a very old thread was not the best way to start at LQ.

I don't know much about the current status of Linux distributions for seriously underpowered computers.

Maybe you selected six year old info on purpose, because everything then was seriously underpowered by today's standards.

But I think you can do better looking for a current Linux for underpowered hardware.

Your more significant limits are the 128MB of ram and 6GB of hard disk. The slow CPU is less of a restriction.

What LQ thread would you suggest to learn which distribution is best for my old/slow machine?
Thanks.

Pretty much any of them will be. Your best bet is to try some. I would go to distrowatch.com and get some and try it. If you are new each distro is going to provide, out of box, slightly different things. Sometimes somethings work better in 1 distro then they do another. Once you get the hang of it, you can do pretty much anything in pretty much all the distros. Some will require more work and more skill on your part to get the samething done. This is mainly because of the "slightly" different things each distro is providing out of the box.

You just have to try it. If your just looking for a gui for an old machine pretty much any of the main stream distros is good, just dont use one of the full window managers like kde or gnome. I would go with xfce or fluxbox. There are some new ones for the netbooks, that are supposedly small and fast I haven't used them yet though so I don't know.

xfce is very nice and easy works GREAT on older machines
fluxbox is very nice but if your relatively new to linux it an be a challenge to setup. The are very few click and change things like changing the background is only done from the command line. Of course YOU can make a menu item that runs the command AND THEN do it from the gui menu.


I think one of the new netbook window managers is called lqtp or something like that. Fedora Core 12, latest fedora, has it as a window manager choice from the install.

My favorite distribution is Mepis, but I wouldn't consider it on a computer with 128MB ram and 6GB of hard disk.

I never found that helpful. Too much popularity measure and too little comparative info.

I haven't tried them either. Maybe the OP needs some advice from someone who is actually using Linux on a system with little ram and little disk.

I expect a few well chosen forum searches would find more recent posts on that topic.

Otherwise, start a new thread with a very specific subject line to attract those who actually know the answer. This might not be too long:

128MB ram, 6GB HD, Powerpoint viewer, which Linux distribution?

i have never used mepis but im sure it would run fine on a slower machine if you used a lighter window manager.

What about mepis requires so much ram that it cant run in 128MB? Can you boot to console only runlevel? How is it there, if it runs fine then its your window manager. Try a lighter one. xfce and fluxbox have been around a long time. There are some new ones for the netbooks, i haven't tried them yet though.