Upgrade tower windows xp to Linux?

Aesop

Hi

after some advice. Friend has windows xp on her tower and it is extremely slow, so was thinking about installing linux on her tower.

before I do.....

here are her specs

she currently has on her tower:

Microsoft Windows XP
Professional
Version 2002
Service Pack 3
Intel R
Celeron CPU 2.66 GHz
2.66 GHz 1.99 GB of Ram



now will it be feasible to install linux on this tower, will it be faster and is the memory sufficent?

debitcardmayhem

Try testing with a live cd/usb eg Mint without installing
http://www.everydaylinuxuser.com/2014/05/how-to-create-bootable-linux-mint-usb.html

esuhl

A decent lightweight Linux distro should work a fair bit faster than Windows XP. XFCE would be a good choice for a lightweight desktop environment.

My netbook has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU with 1GB RAM and it's perfectly usable (although a little slow to open apps initially). I previously installed Windows XP on it and it was so slow as to be completely unusable.

Did you have any particular distros in mind?

Aesop

esuhl wrote: »

A decent lightweight Linux distro should work a fair bit faster than Windows XP. XFCE would be a good choice for a lightweight desktop environment.

My netbook has a 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU with 1GB RAM and it's perfectly usable (although a little slow to open apps initially). I previously installed Windows XP on it and it was so slow as to be completely unusable.

Did you have any particular distros in mind?

not yet, just a passing comment someone made yesterday made me think about installing it. I googled and saw lots of info. so kinda looking for help and support

stator

I've found a lot of linux distros are becoming incompatible with older PCs. Either Kernel CPU requirements or GPU requirements.

Definitely try it out from a Live CD before you install.

Norman_Castle

I use XP with a Celeron M 140 Ghz and 193 GB Ram. Its runs well. Some friends think its quick compared to their newer pc's. Try CCleaner, Malwarebytes, Remove unwanted items from start up using CCleaner. Defrag.
I found a large amount of unwanted files by using Disc space fan 4 free.

http://diskspacefan.com/download.html

If you do instal linux please update your thread as I'm considering trying it possibly with this. https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/mint-xfce#TOC-Minimal-system-requirements

Aesop

Norman_Castle wrote: »

I use XP with a Celeron M 140 Ghz and 193 GB Ram. Its runs well. Some friends think its quick compared to their newer pc's. Try CCleaner, Malwarebytes, Remove unwanted items from start up using CCleaner.

i did all that. she said it had improved it but still slow booting up and using it

googler

Aesop wrote: »

i did all that. she said it had improved it but still slow booting up and using it

Does she still have the Win XP install disc(s) that came with the machine? If so, and

If it's a 'tower' with a free drive space, and the appropriate power/HHD cables within, I would take the current HDD out, install Win XP fresh onto a new solid state drive (don't need a large one, just install the OS), then reinstall the current HDD as a secondary drive. Keep all data on the secondary drive, and ONLY the OS on the SSD.

It'll fly after that.

HappySeagull

googler wrote: »

Does she still have the Win XP install disc(s) that came with the machine? If so, and

If it's a 'tower' with a free drive space, and the appropriate power/HHD cables within, I would take the current HDD out, install Win XP fresh onto a new solid state drive (don't need a large one, just install the OS), then reinstall the current HDD as a secondary drive. Keep all data on the secondary drive, and ONLY the OS on the SSD.

It'll fly after that.

I tried that on an old netbook that originally had XP, but XP didn't like the SSD. Also ran into trouble with Ubuntu Linux, and after trying various distros, found that only Mint worked. (And works very well!)

The tower may be fine, but as debitcardmayhem says, it's easy to test compatibility with a live CD - though it will obviously run slower than a full installation.

Oh, and the 60gb SSD was £30 from Amazon - http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00V5MD8KG?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00

henm2

I have used many Linux distros and mainly use Linux Mint 17.3 cinnamon edition.
However for the OP s spec it is best using a light Linux distro. There are two I would recommend 1. Linux Mint 17.3 xfce (32 bit)
2. Xubuntu 15.10 (32 bit)
Either one will work well on the tower and will be an improvement performance wise on XP and also more secure.

googler

HappySeagull wrote: »

I tried that on an old netbook that originally had XP, but XP didn't like the SSD.

I have a desktop and laptop, both with Samsung SSDs, both with XP, which installed without issue.