installing ubuntu on old computer

my wife has a 2001 dell inspiron 8600. It is soooo sloooowwww.

I am wondering if you guys would think that it would be a good idea to backup up all her files and clear everything off the computer and install ubuntu.

I'm not quite sure how to do all that....but that's another question. Would that be a good idea to resurrect life into her dying laptop?

 

Can you post specs, or a link to specs for that machine?

 

This is basically her computer with 70GM Hard Drive instead of what is listed here:

Dell Inspiron 8600 - Celeron M 340 1.5 GHz - 15.4" TFT - Laptops - CNET Archive

 

Whoa you weren't kidding. That's a slow machine.

You might want to look into stuff like xfce or lxde since running a full desktop environment might slow that system to a crawl.

I would definitely recommend NOT using ubuntu for this, but something that you can tune from the ground up like Debian (base install), Arch, or even DSL... etc.

 

It's painful! We have an new iMac she uses for video editing but she we were hoping to get her laptop running for simple web browsing so she use it on the couch and stuff. Could buy a netbook, but spent more than we wanted on the iMac.

Any help would be useful to getting running for simple tasks.

@ALLurGroceries thanks for your input. Not quite sure what xfce or lxde is...do u have any helpful links? Thanks!

 

i checked out xfce and lxde. do u prefer one over the other?

thanks. I hadn't even heard of those and that's why it's great coming hear and getting all your ideas.

 

are you familiar with dreamlinux?

 

I don't use either regularly, I use a mostly straight-up gnome desktop on debian. You'll have to try them for yourself and see which has a good balance of performance and usability.

Also I haven't used dream linux, I'm a dyed in the wool debian user at this point. I don't do much distro hopping anymore... let's see what other people say about your thread, I don't have a ton more to add at this point.

 

I used to have xubuntu running on a 933MHz Pentium III with 256MB before I gave the machine away. It wasn't super speedy but it was acceptable and that was probably half as fast as your machine.

 

With only 256mb of ram I'd stay away from ubuntu. I remember installing hardy on a pIII 700mhz 192mb of ram and it was an interesting experience... Kubuntu and Xubuntu were pretty usable but that was before kde4.... Do not even try to install with the graphic installer, whichever version you chose get the alternate installer, the lived will either hang at boot or run extremely slowly....

 

I'm running Ubuntu on a 850Mhz Pentium-III Mobile with 384MB RAM. With some optimization it is smooth with multiple applications at the same time. You can make that setup work good as well, I'm sure.

Most importantly get more RAM, at least get yourself to 512MB (1GB is golden). Then install a more lightweight desktop manager such as LXDE or FluxBox. Remove unneeded start up entries, check for Hardware Drivers, finally install Chromium as the default web browser and VLC as the default media player. Uninstall the stuff you don't need using Synaptic. Remove unneeded menu items as well, if you remove alot it will make a difference on older machines. That's about it for me.

 

I have a Debian desktop with LXDE running fine on this:
CPU: AMD K6-2 450MHz (was even fine with the previous 350MHz-CPU)
RAM: 320MB (once had 128MB which was still ok)
HDD: 8GB

The specs of your Dell are plenty for Linux (except for the RAM which is still ok).
Xfce is more comfortable and slightly heavier than LXDE but with 256MB or more still fine.

The most important thing is the software you use. Therefore I'd recommend to try this:
- Midori or Arora instead of Firefox (Midori will be the better choice in most but not all scenarios)
- Abiword & Gnumeric instead of OO

I'd go for a pure Debian with Xfce or LXDE instead of [X|L]Ubuntu. You may want to read this [1] [2]. Saline might be an alternative for a pure Xfce-Debian. The same goes for #!Crunchbang.
Dreamlinux has an Xfce variant that looks a bit like a Mac desktop, so you might like it. Although I must say that I haven't seen a recent Mac for quite a while.

If you don't want to stick with Debian-based distros I'd recommend to give Salix a try.
In any case: Keep an open mind ... and happy distro-hopping!

[1] DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.
[2] DistroWatch.com: Put the fun back into computing. Use Linux, BSD.

 

There is a way to do a barebones install of ubuntu, but once you load the GUI youre talking alot of resources that laptop doesnt have. If youre dead set on ubuntu the best I could recommend is a command line install and only loading bare essential x windows.