Ubuntu or Linux v Windows. Opinions please!

red sean

Hi guys,

I have a small office where we usually get away with using 2 pc's running Windows 7. But i also have an old one with XP pro which often gets called into service. However it's getting very slow now to do anything so I was advised to have it wiped and have either Ubunto or Linux installed instead.

It's used now mainly for browsing, email, word processing when the other 2 are busy.
Is there any advice you could give about which road I should go down and any pitfalls, re: connecting to a network printer etc

All help appreciated,
Sean

bobmac27

Ubuntu might be tricky if you have to install drivers. If you just use it for browsing and word. It is absolutely fine.

bonzodog2

ccleaner and defrag (several times), or does machine have a recovery partion ?

webdev

I would advise you to give Ubuntu a try. I use it at work and I am far more productive with Ubuntu than Windows. The operating itself is great but the shear amount of free software available is outstanding. For example today I used OCRFeeder which is free on the Ubuntu Software Centre to convert a large scanned document into an editable text document. Saved hours of work. Other apps I recommend include LibreOffice as an MS Office/Visio replacement, GIMP instead of Photoshop, Scribus for desktop publishing, Inkscape for vector art, Thunderbird for email and Ubuntu One or Dropbox to keep it all in sync.

Ubuntu.com is where you can download Ubuntu and learn a bit more about it. Let us know the printer model and I will let you know if it is supported or where you can get the driver.

Good luck and let us know how you get on.

Torqay

webdev wrote: »

I would advise you to give Ubuntu a try.

I would rather advise against it. Ubuntu isn't exactly cut out for old computers. You'd want a lightweight novice-friendly distro (e.g. Zenwalk) on such a machine.

And then there's a reinstallation of XP which usually works miracles as it is the only effective cure for what is known as "Windows rot".

uberalles

Consider Linux MINT. You can run it Live - give it a go and see
If it suits without installing it.

There is an option to dual boot if you
Want to install it. Then On boot your asked if I want xp or mint.

Back up everything important first

PogMoThoin

Get more ram, if it struggles with Xp (which runs comfortably with 1GB ram) it will struggle with Ubuntu

MarkR

I'd also recommend mint and ubuntu. Both can be run from a live cd if you want to try it out. Another option would be to reinstall xp. Also, memory is cheap. Very cheap. Go to www.crucial.com/eu and try the memory configurator to see how much it would cost to upgrade.

If you ever played with lego, you can install memory.

Torqay

uberalles wrote: »

Consider Linux MINT.

Why consider Linux MINT? Like Ubuntu, MINT is not really what you want to run on some old clunker. Their current versions are rather heavyweights and designed for modern hardware.

Before we completely derail this thread into some "Which Linux distro is the best" thread, remember that the OP is dealing with an old computer. That narrows the choice of Linux down somewhat.

Khannie

Depending on spec of the XP box, Ubuntu IMO (edit: possibly version 10.04 for an older machine). I had it running just fine on a 1.7GHz pentium M with 1G of RAM until that thing just gave up and died. It's nice and friendly user interface. Easy to connect to network printers. Yada yada yada.

bedlam wrote: »

If you are happy to go the Linux route, consider installing Lubuntu which will run a lot better on lower specd hardware than ubuntu.

Nice lightweight distro if the spec is really terrible. Not super for Linux beginners though IMO (doesn't come with openoffice for example).

bobmac27 wrote: »

Ubuntu might be tricky if you have to install drivers. If you just use it for browsing and word. It is absolutely fine.

Ubuntu comes with just about every driver under the sun for XP era machines. Wouldn't even consider it an issue.

red sean

Hi all, thanks for all the advice.
Not going to get around to doing anything with it for a few days but will let you know.

@bonzodog, CCleaner is run on all the pc's and laptop every few days and the xp machine has been defragged regularly

Thanks again,
Sean

ED E

Post the spec,(Speccy is nice for this, same company as Ccleaner) and we'll have a better idea what we're dealing with.

uch

Torqay wrote: »

I would rather advise against it. Ubuntu isn't exactly cut out for old computers. You'd want a lightweight novice-friendly distro (e.g. Zenwalk) on such a machine.

And then there's a reinstallation of XP which usually works miracles as it is the only effective cure for what is known as "Windows rot".

This is best option if you have some custom apps that run only on windows

PrzemoF

OP, get a livecd, test it - I bet that you'll like it.

I helped to migrate a laptop from windows xp -> ubuntu sometime ago. Three weeks later I asked the owner if everything is OK. He said:
"Ubuntu is the best thing that has ever happened to my laptop"

Torqay

PrzemoF wrote: »

I helped to migrate a laptop from windows xp -> ubuntu sometime ago.

"Some time ago" being the operative word. Pre Gnome 3 versions (never mind Unity) of Ubuntu were still suitable for older machines but since then you really want a multi core CPU and sh*tloads of RAM... and we still don't know the basic specs.

PrzemoF

Torqay wrote: »

"Some time ago" being the operative word. Pre Gnome 3 versions (never mind Unity) of Ubuntu were still suitable for older machines but since then you really want a multi core CPU and sh*tloads of RAM... and we still don't know the basic specs.

It was about 2 months ago, a 64-bit machine with below 1G ram.
64 bit version was too memory hungry, so it's running a 32 bit version now.
The laptop was 5 years old... and you're right: OP, what's in your box?

Defiler Of The Coffin

I recommend adding more RAM to the machine and re-installing Windows XP. You might have to spend more time getting a lightweight Linux distribution to work the way you want. RAM is cheap these days, couple that with a fresh Windows installation and your machine will be as good as new

Torqay

Another cheap "trick" to speed up old boxes:

Get a CompactFlash card and use it as SSD.

8 GB CF card (will do fine for XP) & CF > IDE adapter = 15 yoyos

Khannie

That card says 21MB/s speed = slow as sh*te for sustained transfer compared to a hard drive. I know seek times would be better, but I'd be looking for something faster. Not a bad idea though.

Torqay

Khannie wrote: »

That card says 21MB/s speed = slow as sh*te for sustained transfer compared to a hard drive. I know seek times would be better, but I'd be looking for something faster. Not a bad idea though.

Not the fastest card indeed, but it doesn't really matter, since it is the write speed. Did that a while ago with some old DELL Dimension (P4 2.8 GHz) and 1.5 GB RAM. Used 512 MB for a RAM disk. There I put a small swap file (128 MB), the system temp folder and a sandbox container for browsing. With a few other tweaks, you can pretty much eliminate all write access to the system drive.

Sure, it's still an old clunker and you can do only so much with it but it worked out pretty neat, boots in 20 seconds and feels a lot more responsive.

Of course, if the mobo has a SATA controller you'd want a real SSD, since they're cheap enough now (64 GB ~60 yoyos).