Tag Archives: old computer

old old old computer?

My brother has been messing around with computers lately, mainly on the internet, and my dad and i arent comfortable with him using our respective PCs. i have an old computer (im writing the specs from memory):

Pentium III 800 Mhz intel processor
256 MB RAM(actually less, about 204)
50 Gb HDD
56k modem

cant remember anything else.
Do you think this old heap of junk can be cleaned up and given to him until its beyond repair? its 8 years old.

another thing is that it has win98 installed. i want to reformat it but dad lost the installation disk years back, when i was a kid. win98 doesnt have support anymore, so now what… is there another (hopefully free) OS that can be installed on thes specs? or should i just leave the OS as is?

thanks for your help.

-shame-
sorry it got submitted twice by accident

How Do I install Linux on a system without an operating system currently installed?

I asked a similar question last night but, someone that answered it suggested to re-ask it with more detail. I’ve been trying to install linux on my old PC. [has all requirements for the distributions i've tried, and it used to run Windows XP but, during a system recovery the whole operating system got wiped] The way through which i’ve been trying to install linux is with Live Cd’s, by placing them in the Cd drive of my old computer and letting the computer boot from that. My computer gets as far as the little screen that asks what you want to do [usually "boot cd" "save to harddisk" "check media" etc.] I choose the install to harddisk option and on all my attempts there is some type of error after this. First I tried Ubuntu which resulted in a squash fs error which would not let me do anything else, next I tried OpenSuse which resulted in many many many errors and it would have different errors everytime I would try to boot with it, although at one point i was able to put in the little command prompt looking thing a command I got from a linux forum that completely cleared my harddrive [still wouldn't let me install the OS but, this tells you guys that my hardrive is empty], last night I tried fedora which booted to a text based screen that also would have errors on it and it wouldn’t go passed the text screen [it also comes up with different things every time I try booting with it] So this leads me finally to my question, is this impossible to get working? Is it the fact that I’m trying to install with a Live CD? Should I try to install With Installation CD’s? If this is not a lost cause could someone please provide me with some instruction as to how exactly to get Linux [any distribution will do] on my old computer? [I only have blank CD's not blank dvds so the install media has to be either "Installation CD'S" or "Live Cd's" whatever will work. Any help, links, instructions, anything is greatly appreciated. [oh and yes I have tried burning multiple discs of [ubuntu anyway] and doing the little checksum things before install, and I know very little about linux so please speak as though I know nothing about what I’m doing (considering I pretty much dont)]
-Tried the alternate install cd it worked fine untill it got to asking how i want to partition i chose entire hard disk and then it asked where and I chose my harddrive and then it loaded to 100 percent and then stayed at a blue screen.

Which Linux OS should I use?

I have an old computer with Pentium II 400MHz, 254MB RAM (two 128 MB DDR1 133MHz memory sticks). The max hard drive I can use is 20GB. I have been using Win95 for the longest time and only switched to Vista about a year ago. I have some experience with java programing and doing most windows tasks but I’ll admit that I never worked with DOS or command prompts before (except perhaps when formating but that’s not complicated)

I was interested in switching to Linux but I’m overwhelmed with options.

I need an OS capable of running Firefox (or a browser capable of loading java applets), Open Office (I am not interested in word editors only but I need to make presentations as well so just using Abiword is not enough) and if need be some mp3s (not so much but it would be nice).

I’ve tried PuppyLinux which is light but I wanted something more powerful yet not to demanding on resources.

Last point is that I would like to be able to run the OS as a live CD before installing it.
Thanks.

What is a good version of linux for my old computer?

I have this really old HP Pavilion (7360). It has 72 or 75 mb of ram, 266mhz MMX processor, and a 5gig hard drive. I was thinking of a version of Ubuntu for it, but would it run too slow? I already tried DSL linux, with its 1x(something around that speed) CD drive the live CD didn’t run well. If there are other versions that would work good please tell me. P.S. I used to have 98 on it, but I was fooling around with DSL linux and deleted the windows partition.
Well I tried Xubuntu 6.06.1 and Slitaz and neither worked! Slitaz just stayed at a screen, and Xubuntu found errors and didn’t do any thing els.

How do I transfer files from Win95 to Vista using a Linux Live CD?

What I’m trying to do is transfer files from my old PC to my new one. My old computer is a HP desktop. It doesn’t have a CD-Writer and I can’t remove the hard drive. It does however have a USB port but since my Win95 does not have USB support I looked for alternatives. I found an interesting blog that proposed using a Linux live CD, booting from it, and then copying the files to a USB Key. Problem with this is that I am not interested in paying or ordering the CD since my new computer can write CD’s so all I have to do is download it and burn it.
Here is the problem. I am on Dial-up and have a limited amount of hours per week. I have no clue how ISO files work nor how I can burn them to a disk. I use CyberLink DVD suit to write CDs.
Can any one recommend a small Linux OS that has USB support and can run as a Live CD on a Pentium II 400MHz, 128 Mb Ram, 6.4 Gb total memory split in 2.1Gb partitions? Also how do I create the Live CD? (new system runs on Vista)

Thank you in advance.