Laptop installation prep

[antifanboy]

Hi. i have an old 800Mhz celeron gateway laptop with 192 MB memory and 10 GB HD. It also requires that I use

a sagem 8o2.11x card model xg-760n.

 

What kind of prep should I do if I decide to install Ubuntu linux on it. And would ubuntu Kill this machine. I decided not to put XP on it

because I know XP with service pack 3 is an old machine slayer and would bring it to it's knee's. I'm wondering if Ubuntu will do the same. It currently has WinME on it. Also I found alot of negative feedback about the xg-760n card with linux on google.

 

Thanks alot.

 

Antifanboy. AKA lectrician.

[hybrid]

To be honest, there's little to be lost in giving it a go. You can boot from the Ubuntu live CD (which will obviously run way slower than if/when you choose to install to disc) and see how compatibility is on your particular machine before committing to anything.

 

My only concern is that 192 MB of RAM might be a bit of a limitation, particularly with running directly from the CD and with the latest release. (512 MB would be much more comfortable, but obviously your hardware upgrade choices are likely pretty limited)

 

It might be worth also trying the older Long Term Support (LTS) release rather than the latest version of Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download and choose 8.04 LTS desktop) if you do have problems with 8.10, as its requirements may be lower, but you will still get software upgrades.

 

Let us know how it goes if you give it a try.

[antifanboy]

To be honest, there's little to be lost in giving it a go. You can boot from the Ubuntu live CD (which will obviously run way slower than if/when you choose to install to disc) and see how compatibility is on your particular machine before committing to anything. 

My only concern is that 192 MB of RAM might be a bit of a limitation, particularly with running directly from the CD and with the latest release. (512 MB would be much more comfortable, but obviously your hardware upgrade choices are likely pretty limited)

 

It might be worth also trying the older Long Term Support (LTS) release rather than the latest version of Ubuntu (http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download and choose 8.04 LTS desktop) if you do have problems with 8.10, as its requirements may be lower, but you will still get software upgrades.

 

Let us know how it goes if you give it a try.

 

55 = 0101 0101... wha....

 

oh hey there. Thanks. I will. I REALLY need to convert my desktop machine to dual boot linux. I have been meaning to for a year now.

 

So let me get this straight. The live CD will run as if I had installed the distro on the machine as far as driver compatibility goes?

So I could mess around and get everything running right before I install? Wouldn't there be an issue with installing packages since I never actually installed the distro? I'm thinking this makes it impossible to tell if i could get things running right without much hassle if i couldn;t get them running right from the live CD.

 

For my desktop I anticipate issues with Geforce GTX 260, Sony walkman, Logitech USB mic, and possibly my printer, but I think there must be good relations between Canon Pixma and linux.

For the aforementioned laptop i anticipate issues with the xg 760n network card. I think I will check and see how the live CD runs on that though.

Could end up being a lot better choice of OS than WinME for that machine.

 

Again, thank you.

[hybrid]

So let me get this straight. The live CD will run as if I had installed the distro on the machine as far as driver compatibility goes?So I could mess around and get everything running right before I install? Wouldn't there be an issue with installing packages since I never actually installed the distro? I'm thinking this makes it impossible to tell if i could get things running right without much hassle if i couldn;t get them running right from the live CD.

 

Yes, you are right about both things here. The compatibility issues should be the same from the live CD and when you install. And, yes, if you go ahead and fix those problems by installing packages on the live environment, you reboot and all your hard work would disappear.