Instead of using Windows 7

rallynavvie · Posted: Oct 30, 2009 07:59

While I was back home for a death in the family this past weekend my parents asked if I could take a look at their ailing desktop and see if I could breath some new life into it. I didn't hold out much hope as they've done a good job of crudding up XP over the years and the desktop itself is an 8 year old Dell system with a 1.6 P4 and 512MB memory. I had copies of Windows 7 available to me but I decided that it was the end of Windows for them for now. They have laptops with Windows on them if they really need it but I decided to load Ubuntu on their desktop to start familiarizing them with a Linux OS.

It's been a while since I've used Linux as a native host OS though I use Ubuntu daily in a VM. Install process went well and after all the updates were applied and the system settings tweaked I was amazed to see how well the old PC ran! They really only use it for internet, email, and office applications and I had done some testing with their office docs in my VM to make sure they'd work after the switch. I've had them using Firefox for a couple years now so they're familiar with its interface but I did have to teach them about AdBlock and NoScript, even though I have a pretty decent list for both that I loaded up for them.

I'm somewhat proud to report that they've taken to Ubuntu very well this week. They both love how much more responsive the system is and how Ubuntu seemed to fix all the issues they were having with XP. And since they can't really install applications from the net (they have to use the Add Program option where the apps are often tested and reliable) so it's going to be forever before they can mess it up. Their peripherals, like the digital camera and scanner, are even working without their bloatware now. And their printer is shared to the wireless so they can print from anywhere (even though I could have set up XP to do it the Linux implementation is a lot nicer).

Start converting, people. If my folks can use it and like it then others should be able to use it and like it.
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freebird73717 · Man of Steel Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Location: Smallville

Bravo! I applaud you for getting them to try Linux and ubuntu is a great place to start. For a good majority of people that just do email, internet, and office linux is all they really need anyway.
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vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

I am interested in Ubuntu as well. My work place gave me an IBM T42 which had Intel Due Core 1.6 and 512 RAM. It is running XP Pro and it seems slow. I want to experiment Ubuntu, but my fear is that there are no drivers for T42. I just visited the IBM site, but there's no driver for other OS's.

Any idea how to get started?

Thanks

edDV · Posted: Oct 30, 2009 12:00

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

rallynavvie · Posted: Oct 30, 2009 12:23

Yeah, I was surprised that my Sony Vaio SZ-series laptop had most of its drivers available for Ubuntu, and that includes the biometric.

Download the Ubuntu ISO for your system (desktop 32-bit or 64-bit) and boot to it. There's a "live CD" option that allows you to run Ubuntu from the CD and see if it can detect all of your devices once it's loaded.
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disturbed1 · Member Joined: 22 Apr 2001 Location: init 4

@vcdlover
http://www.thinkwiki.org all about IBM/Lenovo laptops.

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

Thanks all for suggestions.

No doubt that I still love Windows. I just spent several $$$ for a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate (for my main workhorse PC) and another copy of Windows 7 Home Upgrade for my Toshiba laptop. I just want to try Ubuntu to see if I could get hooked.

That's my weekend project other than watching college football and NFL.

tun.tin · Member Joined: 27 Oct 2009 Location: United States

I have a stripped xp lite version only 100MB iso just for magicjack/file sharing and it has been running 24/7 over a year now without problem. Windows still rocks

mh2360 · Long Member Joined: 01 Aug 2001 Location: UK

MJA · Member Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Location: IL

3Simon7 · Simply Amazing Joined: 20 May 2006 Location: uSA

There is also a very small version of linux available for older and slower PCs.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

http://www.amazon.com/Official-Damn-Small-Linux-Book/dp/0132338696
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vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

Now there's a problem. Ubuntu was installed and everything seemed to be successful. When it restarted, it said "error: no such device: 4f8d52ed and etc. Press any key to continue." I've tried to install it three times and it still said the same message. I didn't change anything other than following the 6 steps. Ubuntu didn't give me any warning about any device. The Prepare disk space option, I chose Erase and use the entire disk. It shows the hard drive below the line SCSI1 (0,0,0) (sda) - 40.0 GB ATA. The blue bar above said The computer has Ubuntu 9.10 (9.10) on it. Have I done anything wrong?

Thanks for any suggestion

freebird73717 · Man of Steel Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Location: Smallville

That's an error that I haven't seen before and a quick google check didn't give me anything based on what you wrote. If anybody else doesn't have any more ideas then try posting the exact error message at the ubuntu forums for some detailed help.

http://ubuntuforums.org/

edit
specifically check out this thread
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1305819
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MJA · Member Joined: 05 Jan 2005 Location: IL

Ubuntu for netbook wont run on my ASUS Eee PC 2G Surf(2GB hard drive,512mb memory) ,but I have no issue with Microxp sp3

disturbed1 · Member Joined: 22 Apr 2001 Location: init 4

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

disturbed1 · Member Joined: 22 Apr 2001 Location: init 4

There are more than a couple of bugs in Launchpad about grub2 just prior to the release, and not all Thinkpad owners. I'm really surprised Ubuntu moved to grub2 as the default boot loader. There's a reason grub2 is labeled as unstable. Hell even Arch Linux - which is considered bleeding edge doesn't ship grub2 as default.

To fix this -
See if you can boot in recovery mode. Sooner or latter someone on the Ubuntu forums will post how to fix this.
If recovery doesn't work either, you'll need a live cd. Mount your hard drive, and edit it that way.
Wait on Ubuntu to respin the installation CDs (if they ever do).
Do what other in the same position as yourself have done - install an older version then upgrade to the latest.
Attempt to try this https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Grub2#Recover%20Grub%202%20via%20LiveCD

Don't forget about these distros either

http://www.vectorlinux.com/
http://www.goblinx.com.br/en/
http://zenwalk.org/

Good Luck, and have fun!
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vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

rallynavvie · Posted: Oct 31, 2009 12:11

Strange that I've never had an issue installing Ubuntu on anything. I thought for sure there would be something wrong with the install on the 8 year old Dell Dimension desktop. My Vaio laptop didn't have an issue with it either. You're probably on the right path installing the older version. 9.10 just came out this week so I would have recommended going back to 9.04 to see if that works.
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freebird73717 · Man of Steel Joined: 09 Dec 2003 Location: Smallville

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States

OK, to follow up

I was able to run 9.10 on my Thinkpad by installing 9.04 first then run the upgrade with no issue. My previous issue was that I installed 8.04 first. Ubuntu didn't allow 8.04 to 9.10. Everything is running fine now. I'm still learning how to locate each directory and it'll take time. I notice that the Thinkpad is running faster now. I would say about 30% faster.

Well, not everything is smooth. I download AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.5 for Linux and install it. The problem is, I couldn't find the location after successful installing. Based on the help from a link provided by Ubuntu, it said You can find AVG Antivirus under Applications > Accessories > AVG for Linux Workstation. Unfortunately, there's no AVG found under that directory.

Another issue, every time it restarts, it always prompts to enter the wireless connection code even though I choose remember.

Any help is appreciated.

Thanks

Poppa_Meth · lil' bit crazy Joined: 11 Aug 2003 Location: United States

In my limited Ubuntu experience (I'm just starting to tinker with it myself) the free Avast AV is much better than AVG is on Linux anyway.
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disturbed1 · Member Joined: 22 Apr 2001 Location: init 4

Why are you guys installing an antivirus in the first place? Running a mail server or something

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rallynavvie · Posted: Nov 01, 2009 11:44

Poppa_Meth · lil' bit crazy Joined: 11 Aug 2003 Location: United States

I run it as a precaution just because all my other rigs are Windows.
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vcdlover · Member Joined: 11 Jul 2002 Location: United States