Linux question for the boffins

The Great Wallsendo

The Great Wallsendo

Well-known member
Got an old desktop unit whereby the hard drive is pretty much goosed

I want to buy/install a new hard drive into the unit...

once I've done that how easy is it to install Linux onto it? and is there a minimum hardware spec' required?

Do I need the setup files on a seperate/removable drive to then plug and play?

all just spitballing at the moment - just curious how I'd go about it tho...

cheers in advance
 
Hi Tony

There are loads of ' flavours ' of Linux out there and getting one installed should be reasonably straight forward. You can download the installer from a number of suppliers, this is then burned onto a cd as a bootable file. It can also be installed/ run from usb memory stick.

Link to popular min spec page https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements#Ubuntu Desktop Edition

link to download / instruction page
Download | Ubuntu

I am more comfortable with Windows and msdos to be honest, certainly not a Linux expert although I do use it on my dreambox , hope this helps a bit.

Jonny
 
cheers Jonny ;)

Was thinking towards Linux for the "spare" PC because it was free and also because the old hard drive has the O/S pre-loaded so therefore I have no O/S software on disk to upload to any new hardware
 
go for ubuntu. its an absolute doddle to install. download the ISO (free) burn to disk. bung in pc, boot from cd and click 3 buttons

or you can even copy it to a usb memory stick and install from that or install onto a memory stick as a boot drive, or install alongside windows without partitioning and run both at once

its pretty low on hardware demands, I've got ubuntu 9 (aka Karmic Koala) running on a 700mhz PIII with only 128Mb Ram here. recomended is anything 1Ghz but will run on anything from 300mhz up.

latest release is ubuntu 10 (aka lucid lynx) which will run on the same low spec machine

its heaps faster than every windoze, very stable, very secure, no viruses, no spyware, comes with the unix equivalent of MS Office (cross compatible to move docs about)loads of apps for day to day stuff - picture editing, media players etc etc

you can install 'WINE' which will allow you to run windows apps straight in the OS as well
 
Hi,

Not sure if your done already, was going to say if the machine is lower spec then xubuntu is good. It's the same as ubuntu but usese a different desktop (xfce) that uses less memory, I sometimes use it even on higher end machines.


Shaun
 
Linux question for the boffins

pm you phone no i will forward it to my son he can give info he is a data programer in linux
 
Back
Top