My Dad's Old Dell Inspiron, can it run Linux?

My Dad has an old Dell Inspiron running a Pentium M I think at 1.6GHz. It is slow as mollassus (sp). Seriously, it is very annoying to use.

My Dad wouldn't mind if I could speed up his system since he is no longer going to buy himself a new laptop (due to a financial change).

Anyway, he told me he practically only uses it like a netbook (he does have a Pentium IV desktop that suits his needs).

If I can find the original OS disc, I'm going to format the harddrive and reinstall XP. But, I'm wondering what experienced Linux users think of putting a Linux distribution on it instead? I know a clean install of XP will help a lot! But, do you think putting Ubuntu on it would be even faster? Will 11.04 even work on this system? The thought also crossed my mind of Chromium OS, even though I believe it is only in beta, if all he needs is web browsing, I can see this as being really beneficial (and considering he does have a GMail account since he got an Android phone, although, he doesn't use his GMail email), again that is if it is still compatible with his computer?

All input is appreciated!
Thanks!

 

I have an old Compaq Presario that runs Xubuntu 11.04. It also has a Pentium M processor and mobility radeon 9200, it runs flawlessly.

I also gave it to my father and he uses it for email, web browsing, etc.

 

It should work fine. I ran older versions of ubuntu on my dell pentium M 2.0, and that was with gnome 2. xubuntu should work well.

also if i remember correctly you might be able to pin mod that 1.6 to run at 2.4Ghz.

 

Older hardware tends to work well in linux. I'd give it a god with a live CD or USB key.

 

Ok, thanks for the help guys. I pulled apart the entire computer first to replace the thermal paste for the first time in 6 years (what a disaster to the heatsink, and pain to dissasemble). Now that I'm done with that and airflow has been improved, I'm backing up his my documents. I can't find his external HDD so I'm using mine, he has pretty much already backed up and deleted most stuff which is nice. I downloaded the 32bit Ubuntu ISO and unfortunately have to restart my laptop in order to use my DVD drive (it doesn't work from sleep...).

I did find his original software that came with his purchase and went to dell's site for newer versions of drivers. I just need to decide now whether to go Ubuntu or XP, not going to do both. I could install it into windows on his computer to see how it performs. He's never used anything other than XP ever since it came out so Ubuntu will be a learning curve for him (and me since I've not used it too much).

 

As a rule of thumb, you need at least 512MB of RAM to run a mainstream distro like Ubuntu 11.04 - although you can do a minimal command line install with much less. So the answer is yes, probably, since Linux tends to be less problematic on older PCs than on just released bleeding-edge hardware.

My suggestion is to burn an .iso to a CD and run it as a Live Disc to check functionality or from a USB thumbdrive using Unetbootin. If you do install, make sure the notebook is connected to a wired internet connection so you can download drivers during installation.

 

Ok, everything is done. I installed Ubuntu 11.04 32bit on his computer reformatting the entire HDD. All of his stuff works perfectly and it is amazing how fast his computer is now. It is about 10x faster. We'll see what he thinks. Unfortunately I do not understand the Linux kernal OS's very much. I've seen how people customize Ubuntu but to be honest, I have no clue how. I've messed around with it for quite a bit back when I used to have it installed into Vista but could never figure anything out. I didn't install any of the updates from the update manager because I'm not sure how many are necessary (I don't even know how to update Firefox 4.0 to 5.0 on Ubuntu). All drivers are up to date though and I did install with a LAN connection, suprisingly the WiFi driver was already built in.

If anyone has any advice on understanding Ubuntu, I'm all ears. One of the biggest things I've tried is leaving my understanding of Windows at the door. But I'm still lost.

For example: I don't know what Gnome is, Unix, or any of that stuff, I've tried to search them, but I just get lost.

Also, not sure if I should update the BIOS, it is version A08 for the Inspiron 6000 and apparently Dell released A09.

 

Honestly, you need to dive right in. As far as updates - all of them should be necessary. They include things like bugfixes and security updates - and Firefox 5.0.

As far as customization, there are some pretty decent guides. Try to install ccsm, the advanced compiz configuration panel. Compiz is basically what gives you those nice effects with your windows and such. A lot can be customized from there.

Gnome is basically the desktop. This includes some of the applications and such as well. However, ubuntu uses it's own Unity desktop - which is based on Gnome technology. It's just the environment and technology behind your computers interface. Hence the term, Desktop Environment. Unix is an OS that goes back a few decades. Linux is basically a clone of Unix. It works in similar ways, but there are still huge differences. Unix is also the underlying technology behind a fair bit of Mac OS X - which is also a unix clone. However, OS X uses technology derived from BSD - which is derived from unix. It's all a big web of interrelationship.

 

Hellhog I am glad you asked about this, I am going to try on a Dell D610. IF everything works I would not Flash the BIOS, there is always the remote chance of a bad flash, resulting in a machine that will not post.
IF you have to flash read all you can about your model in the Dell forums here, with my asus I had to format a USB drive to Fat 32, turn off keyboard lights, modify a .bat file to run the flash outside windows, etc

 

So, my dad gave it a run this morning and he loved it. He really happy about how much faster his computer is. He did tell me that he still wants to be able to use Word & Excel which I know he can do in LibreOffice not to mention MS Office 2007 (which is on his desktop) has compatibility with open formats now. He would also like to use it for music which means WMA and MP3 formats since that is what all his music is ripped to on his desktop.

Am I able to install MS Office 2003 Professional into WINE? I don't even know if the CD key can be used again (as if it was a different computer) and I read somewhere about MS shutting it down if it detects it installed on Linux.

Last is the audio and video formats. Does the Banshee Player support MP3's? If not, is there a plugin I can get? Same thing for WMA? And what about WMV? Since I believe that is the format used on his camcorder.

If he can keep the simple cross compatibility he will keep it. He told me he'd use it for now but if necessary he'll have me reinstall XP (which honestly I don't want to deal with installing the drivers and updates, takes forever on my Vista, I can assume no easier on XP, I still can't believe 11.04 already had every driver).

In response to two of the above posts:
I won't flash the BIOS, I did it with my laptop once which helped a start from sleep issue but really no reason to do it for his computer. Also, when I get a chance I'll run every update from the update manager.

 

Have you set LibreOffice to save files as *.doc and *.xls, that should help a lot (If not, instructions here).

Your father should not have much trouble going back and forth from Word and Writer. Excel and Calc is a different matter.

 

Wine shouldn't have any problem with either 2007 or 2003. As far as codecs, go in the ubuntu software center and install "ubuntu restricted extras" that will install flash, java all the codecs for mp3 and wmv that you might need.

 

I installed the restricted extras, VLC, audacious, adobe flash, adobe reader, updated everything.

The issue I'm now having is with MS Office 2003 and Wine. I don't know what I'm doing. I installed Wine, used Winetricks to install Office 2003 Pro (by clicking install apps then Office 2003 Pro while the software disc was in the drive). I installed all the programs (except InfoPath since it requires IE) and I was prompted for the key which is accepted. Now, I can't find it anywhere in the computer. How do I access it?

 

It will be in your wine folder under program files. In Ubuntu I believe it is Apps>Wine>Program Files>MS

 

For some reason, there is nothing just called wine, only winetricks and configure wine. Although, it finally showed up in the apps settings. Some had the appropriate icon while others had just a glass. The weird thing is InfoPath was there and worked even though I chose not to install it. I couldn't figure out a way to unistall the software (even through the Wine unistaller). Only reason I want to unistall was because I didn't realise that my dad's Office 2007 software was retail and he had it on this laptop too. In the end, everything worked and bootup and programs were nice and fast. But our familiarity is low vs windows. I plan on dual booting to Ubuntu when I upgrade windows so that I can create the partitions. But till then, I won't be able to break the windows understanding habbit when using Linux. For the sake of simpliity of our understanding and compatability, I already formatted the HDD and am installing XP. Thank you everyone for the help though. If XP is just way too slow on his computer though, I'll definitely go back to Ubuntu because the speed on that old beast for boot up and web browsing was so impresive vs what it used to be.

 

A fresh XP install should work fine, it was the last Windows release which did not require at least 2GB's of RAM for decent performance.

 

Yea, I finished the reinstall, it is crazy fast too. I think between the 6 year old thermal past and dust build up, and stuff bogging down on the software side, this is making it like new. I'm just trying to clean up the computer now and install any drivers I need. It works so much nicer than my computer from a fresh reinstall without drivers. My machine without drivers is so slow and crummy. His crummy computer without the extra drivers is awesome, lol.

 

open up software update/manager whatever it's called.
Look for the restricted extras or whatever it's called. (haha sorry not on linux)Install those to get support for MP3, Java, Flash, and DVD playback.

same thing for firefox 5. just search for firefox 5

as for his office programs... LibreOffice is what you got. Have it default to save in Microsoft Office formats. It's a bit of a UI change, but the functionality is the same.

If he wants outlook, Firebird is pretty close.

If he HAS to have office, install virtualbox and put windows XP on a virtual machine. Show him how to run it in seamless mode and only install the few programs he wants on there with a shared folder.

*edit*
Or forget it, and just install windows XP... *shrugs*

 

I have to load an OS on my Dell D610, I tried the live CD for 12.04 and it worked great. I know I will have issues with the wireless apapter (Broadcom) but have a good idea how to fix it. When I "take the plunge" should the laptop be docked or undocked? I will use it about 50/50 % docked/undocked. I have the D Port dell D610 docking station - Bing Images
Also AFA partitioning http://forum.notebookreview.com/6453994-post13.html I have an 80 GIG HDD. Is the suggest in the link doable, If I want to clean install Win 7 and dual boot with 12.04?

 

Install Lubuntu or Mint Debian Edition XFCE on that old computer and it will seem like a hot rod.