Putting Linux on my old Dell

Operating Systems & Open Source Linux
1

    To get straight to the point, I want linux on this machine. This machine is old and very out dated (it's a Dimension 3000 which was released in 2005) and Windows XP is becoming more and more frustrating. I have a few problems though and I'll list them here:

Firstly, I don't even know if a linux OS will run on this computer. I tried booting up Ubuntu from a USB a few months ago to see if it would boot up and run well. It ended up freezing, so I gave up on it.

Secondly, I am not the only person using this computer. My brother occasionally uses this computer for itunes, so if I do get a linux OS I will need to be able to access itunes easily.

Thirdly, I really need to wipe my hard drive clean. It's 40 GB drive with 2 GB left. Plus there was a point where this computer had a virus and I believe part of the hard drive was partitioned to contain it. I don't know if that virus in the partition will be a problem when wipeing the hard drive, and I don't even know if the partition is actually there, so if there is some way I check for that that would be great.

And lastly, if things back fire on me and I do something wrong, what can I do to restore Windows XP. I don't care about the data on the hard drive. I will have everything that I care about on a flash drive. I just want to be able to restore Windows XP.

If someone could help me get linux on this machine I would be eternally grateful.

2

The biggest question: how much RAM do you have? There are many, many, many flavors of Linux, each with a different audience in mind. I have an even older Dell inspiron notebook that only has 256MB of RAM, with a 2.6GHz Celeron CPU (Pentium 4 based), and after I updated Windows XP to SP3, I didn't have any RAM to do anything. So, I had slaped on a flavor of Linux called WattOS, which is basically a trimmed down version of Lubuntu, and now I can do some basic web browsing while listening to music.

Also, iTunes is not available on Linux, though there are other media players, such as Banshee and Audacious.

Again, this depends on which flavor of Linux you want, but a lot of them come with a parition editor called GParted, and you can shrink, expand, create, or delete partitions with this program pretty easily. However, the mainstream versions, such as Ubuntu, or Linux Mint, have installers that can automaticallly wipe and re-partition the hard drive for you.

If things backfire, the only way to get windows XP back after you wipe the disk is to is to install again from CD.

If you have at least 384MB of RAM (or more), I'd highly recommend Linux Mint 13 XFCE. If you have 768MB of RAM, or more, I'd look at Linux Mint 13 MATE edition.

You can find Linux Mint here:

http://www.linuxmint.com/oldreleases.php

3

I have 1 GB of RAM on a Pentium 4 2.8 Ghz processor.

I knew that itunes was unavailable, but I know there is a windows emulation software, so I am assuming itunes could be run on that. If I am going to put linux on here I need to be able to run itunes so my brother can do it thing whenever he needs too.

4

you're thinking about WINE, though before wiping the drive compleatly i'd test it out and see if it'll work, not everything works

if you only have 2gb free then you'd have to free up some space in xp

5

Well, there is WINE which is a recursive acronym for Wine Is Not an Emulator, but it works with pretty limited functionality. Basically, you'd be better off with something like Banshee over iTunes in WINE.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=27734

With 1GB, I'd recommend running Linux Mint 13 MATE. You can go ahead and grab the 32 bit version here:

http://www.linuxmint.com/edition.php?id=103

6

in my tests itunes would not run correctly on ubuntu 12.04 with wine 1.4

7

For god's sake don't use itunes. It's a bad piece of software, so don't use it.

8

what if he has tones of money sinked into music only playable with itunes? kindof makes it a necessety

i don't use itunes, but knowing apple i doubt you can download all your music and use a different player

9

He's trapped in a walled-garden. The only way to help them is to help them breaking out of there. It might be painfull but it's worth it.

I'm sure there is a way to save all the stuff in a acceptable format. If it can be played, it can be captured.

And yes, I know that some people are to confortable with their walled garden and don't care. You can't help them and shouldn't try.