Comments on: Ask the Readers: Someone Gave Me a Laptop. Now What?

By: My First Tryst with Ubuntu: Things Worked. Mostly.

My First Tryst with Ubuntu: Things Worked. Mostly. — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:48:50 +0000

[...] my last post, I mentioned wanting to try out Linux, specifically Ubuntu. After much consideration and with the [...]

By: My First Tryst with Ubuntu: Things Worked. Mostly.

My First Tryst with Ubuntu: Things Worked. Mostly. — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:48:50 +0000

[...] my last post, I mentioned wanting to try out Linux, specifically Ubuntu. After much consideration and with the [...]

By: Fu4ny

Fu4ny — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 11:51:36 +0000

Yes, some time windows is the right tool, but you can use most of windows feature in Linux. I’m a linux user, and I think if you’re familiar with Linux, you’ll not need windows

By: Rick

Rick — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 10:53:29 +0000

The purpose of dual-booting is that it’s a laptop, which means he may be away from his Windows computers and need to use Windows. I love Linux, but sometimes Windows is the right tool for a job.

By: Fu4ny

Fu4ny — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 06:20:26 +0000

I prefer Gnome to KDE, especially you are using a laptop. And yes, you can easily install KDE app into Gnome desktop.

You should leave all 40G HDD for Linux partition, I don’t see the point install Windows here, since you already have a Windows computer. And you sould try Ubuntu for the first time using Linux, if you want to try a bigger distro, take a look at Debian, but it’s harder for a newcomer.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 00:26:39 +0000

@Rob Horton
How would KDE vs. Gnome affect driver support? The only thing I can think of is when people tell you how to install the driver and it’s a simple GUI install, in which case you won’t have to ask anyway.

@Cheryl
Most apps are not specific to KDE or Gnome. Having both KDE and Gnome and being able to choose between them is a great option, I totally forgot that you can do that easily nowadays.

By: Bill

Bill — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:00:25 +0000

There are a decent number of posts here about how much faster Linux is on older hardware. Personally, I’ve not found that to be the case. Be it drivers or whatever, I’ve historically found that if the machine is actually *usable*, meaning, flash stuff is fast enough, browsers are responsive enough, etc. XP *feels* faster than Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, etc.

I’d recommend dual booting to a clean install of XP and deciding for yourself. The Linux route is a good learning experience, but I’ve never found it to be faster when the machine is going to be used…meaning, it isn’t serving files, acting as a router, etc.

If you decide to go the dual boot route, it’s very easy, setup a 1G FAT partition, followed by a 10G NTFS partition for XP, then install Linux after that. Linux will handle it’s partitions and the boot loader just fine.

By: Rob Horton

Rob Horton — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 20:27:52 +0000

I’ve installed Ubuntu on a couple of laptops, a Gateway that’s about 3 years old and a Compaq that’s 5 years old. I had no driver issues on the newer one and set it up to dual boot, though I rarely boot into Windows. I did have an issue with the wireless card on the Compaq, but was able to find the help I needed online to resolve it. With a 40gb hard drive, don’t dual boot. I recommend Ubuntu over the Kubuntu in the event that you encounter any driver issues. You are more likely to find the help you need to resolve the driver issues under Ubuntu, at least that has been my experience.
You will want to have internet access to keep it updated and to add software not included with the standard distribution more easily.
I would recommend waiting about a month, as the new Ubuntu version is due out April 23.

By: Peter Owen

Peter Owen — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:25:25 +0000

I would definitely use it for linux only. Since you already have a windows box, why both dual booting it. It would especially be good to run linux on since it typically uses less resources than windows. I’ve done the same thing a couple times with old laptops. Usually runs like a charm. Ubuntu is also a good pick for a beginner. I used to use Slackware which is pretty good for someone a little more familiar with it. I’ve also heard that Mint linux is good as well.

By: gokudomatic

gokudomatic — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 06:53:39 +0000

I got a laptop too. Not very powerful but still enough for travels. I installed on it ubuntu one time, but I’m more convinced by fedora now. Anyway, I killed my X and converted my laptop to a server. transmission-daemon, amuled and ssh installed, and I got a very lightweight secure server that I can remotely access from windows. I even put a ftp server for when I want to send or get files from outside my router. All very safe and nice, I must say. I mean, why the need of an X desktop when ssh is enough?
But if I had an older, slower laptop, I would have tried with a minimalistic distribution like DSL, or an optimized distribution like Gentoo. I’m sure even a 486 would be fine.

By: Bill

Bill — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 12:40:40 +0000

Install Smoothwall and use it as a router. It has it’s own built in UPS.

By: brian

brian — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 02:30:44 +0000

if you’re going to “try” linux, I would strongly suggest sampling different flavors via the multitude of available LiveCDs. There are many that have been tweaked for a particular look and feel (DreamLinux is a variant of PCLinuxOS and tweaked to be very Mac-like), and others that have been tweaked for particular functions (CAELinux is specialized for CAD and finite element analysis). I believe almost all of them will run off a CD-RW. Some are so…enhanced they require a DVD. If you’re considering dual-boot so you have access to certain Windows apps, I would recommend installing Wine and testing it to see if it will suffice.

By: Ignacio

Ignacio — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:57:17 +0000

I also got for free an old laptop with AMD 1800+ and 256Mb RAM and 20 Gb HD. I installed Ubuntu 8.04 alone, but it is possible to also have Windows and dual boot (20+20Gb would be OK). So your laptop is more than capable to run Ubuntu (which is the distro I recommend). I later added another 256 Mb RAM to run multiple applications easier. Internet is not a must to install and run Ubuntu, but most tutorials are there. Good luck

By: DanSpec

DanSpec — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 00:02:14 +0000

Check out Wubi.. http://wubi-installer.org/ First install windows, then run Wubi, it will download the ubuntu iso, then install ubuntu. You wont find an easier way to install linux, and if you are unhappy with the installation. Goto add/remove programs and uninstall it.

By: Mike J

Mike J — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 22:44:09 +0000

I am a Linux dilettante, but try Freespire if you are used to Windows. It seems to go back & forth between Debian & Ubuntu.It is a nice OS for the low cost of nothing.
My problem was I could never get my screen resolution right, & more importantly, no drivers for my Canon Pixma MP470 printer (which is excellent, BTW).I went back to XP.

By: OoOps

OoOps — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:06:20 +0000

Hy,

YES, this machine works well under Linux distros. I have the same Toshiba as second computer. In the last 5 years, i installed lot of distributions on it, almost all of them were working fine.

My final choice would be debian, or second choice (k)ubuntu.

With 256M of RAM, this was working well. I added 512M more, it’s now pretty fast.

The main thing you will encounter is a nvidia driver problem (black lines on the left/right of the screen). The best solution is to use the nvidia/ati ENVY software : http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

For internet connection, a cable connection works fine. WIFI is working too with (old) PCMCIA standard cards with ubuntu. It’s quite difficult to install them with debian.

Enjoys.

By: Josh

Josh — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 20:12:52 +0000

[Should I consider dual-booting?]
Yes, but…
First try using a ‘livecd’ of the linux distro you want to install. It will run linux off of a cd without changing your computer in any way. That way you can see how it looks and if it works with your hardware before you commit.
The normal ubuntu installer cd doubles

[Can my laptop handle it?]
I’m running ubuntu on a Thinkpad T20 with a 650MHz processor and 256MB RAM. Right now I’m using ~5GB of the harddisk.
Granted, it’s a little slow and I don’t have very much installed, but it’s fine for browsing the web, using remote desktop, etc.
Your laptop shouldn’t have any problem running it, and 30GB should be plenty.

[What distribution should I choose?]
Ubuntu is a good choice to get started with.
It’s been designed to be easy to learn to use, and has great community support.

[How important is it to have an internet connection?]
Having an internet connection makes installing things easier, as Mike said.
The second post here describes how to set up your wireless card: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=95591

By: Daniel Pataki

Daniel Pataki — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:19:33 +0000

Hi Cheryl!

I second the Windows first, Linux Second install. I would also definitely recommend Ubuntu first. It is SO plug and play, I mean it’s like Windows with a different skin. That was obviously a bit of an overstatement, but it is really easy to use. You can install it from Windows and if you can’t get something to work on it, you can just boot back into Windows.

I am not really experienced in Linux either, but I learned so much using Ubuntu, it really is great!

By: The Mighty Buzzard

The Mighty Buzzard — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:08:20 +0000

Since nobody else has said it, I will. If you’re going to dual boot, install Windows then Linux. It will save you many a headache.

By: Votre

Votre — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 19:02:37 +0000

Go with CrunchBang Linux at: http://crunchbanglinux.org

I’m running this Ubu-based distro on a PIII-300 w/384M of RAM and it’s very light on its feet despite the fact it has a very robust set of apps.

If that’s too slow, then Puppy is definitely your best option. After CrunchBang of course. ;-)