hey guys i recently got a free computer its a p4 1.6ghz with 256mb ram. the model is powerspec 8280. i formatted the drive and put a old geforce 3 ti200 and a turtle beach santa cruz soundcard in that i had laying around. i have been interested in learning linux and was wondering if this machine would be worth or able to handle linux. im 23 years old now and i played around a little with mandrake awhile back when i was in 10th grade but havent used it since. i havent seen or heard anything about mandrake lately so i was thinking about ubuntu. how does this sound to u guys?
edit: also i dont have any of the driver discs that originally came with the pc so i dont know if that will be a problem. im maining concerned about lack of ethernet card driver and able to get it running online.
You're pretty much on the limit of the minimum spec there for the latest release of Ubuntu (especially with the 256 MB RAM), but barring any serious hardware incompatibilities, I imagine it would run on your system. You might consider going back to the last Long Term Support release -- 8.04 -- as it may have less demanding requirements. Alternatively you could look at the more stripped down Xubuntu variant as well.
I'd recommend giving the Ubuntu you want to play with, I assume the normal desktop edition, a try. If its performance is too slow, perhaps you could try the older 8.04 release or Xubuntu, or both (Xubuntu 8.04).
Of course, if you could bump the RAM up to 512 MB or 768 MB, you would notice a real difference and Ubuntu would probably run with acceptable performance on that system.
i'd strongly recommend you upgrade the RAM to 1gb or so, 256 these days is just going to cause a bad experience with just about any os
also, take a look at Fedora as well as Ubuntu, Fedora 11 is the current release
cheers
Wot they said.
Later releases of Linux (recent Ubuntu, later Fedora as cited there) will be pretty knowledgeable about hardware, so there shouldn't be any compatibility issues.
FWIW, if you DO find some hardware not working, obtaining some part codes (obscure numbers/letters to identify the hardware) and banging it into Google often brings up some info about alternative drivers (sometimes known as "modules" in Linux) - I did this with the odd network card here and there in the cases when Linux didn't properly detect the hardware and I forced it to an alternative choice. This *is* going back 7 years ago or so, and I've not had to encounter it in recent years. I don't think you'll have any issues with modern distros.
I'll also echo what they said about memory - even in the Windows world, many people found dropping more RAM into their PCs sped up normal Windows processing (even 98 and Win2K). It *is* possible to streamline your install to optimise it for a smaller footprint, but from what you've said I reckon this is much further down the road for you - in the meantime, hunting down more RAM ought to be a quick fix and give you a bit of overhead.
Good luck with trying it out! Since you've played with Mandrake, you'll know it isn't Windows and won't do everything in the way Windows does. But keep at it!
hey guys its been awhile since i last posted this but thanks for the help! i couldnt seem to find any ram old enough laying around that would work with that powerspec 8280, and i dont have alot of extra money to be spending on something so out of date so i gave up on the powerspec for now. however, a few days ago i was lucky enough to stumble upon a lenovo t60 laptop (it fell off a truck). i just finished installing ubuntu on it now; the specs are: intel core duo t2400 @ 1.83ghz, 1gb ram, intel GMA 950 integrated graphics. the install seemed to go fine but there are 2 things that i am finding kinda strange. 1. in system monitor it is only reading 993.6 MiB ram and 2. i connected to my wireless network fine on the first try, it stayed connected for maybe 5 minutes and then disconnected on its own and now i cant reconnect. if anyone has any suggestions on how i can go about fixing these problems id appreciate it. the memory reading issue isnt as much as of a concern as not being able to connect to my wireless network. thanks!
Quote:the specs are: intel core duo t2400 @ 1.83ghz, 1gb ram, intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.
... in system monitor it is only reading 993.6 MiB ram
Some of the RAM could be devoted to the onboard GFX card. Check the BIOS settings.
Quote:2. i connected to my wireless network fine on the first try, it stayed connected for maybe 5 minutes and then disconnected on its own and now i cant reconnect. if anyone has any suggestions on how i can go about fixing these problems id appreciate it. the memory reading issue isnt as much as of a concern as not being able to connect to my wireless network. thanks!
Check the logfiles, see what they say - stuff in /var/log - they may provide some information.
What indication do you get that the wireless is failing? Is it just inability to surf? What does the output of "ifconfig" tell you?