[deoetdoctrinae]

The specs will tell you that it's a real dinosaur, lol. 40GB hard drive, with 30.5GB current free space. Pentium III. 512MB of RAM. I have a USB wireless adapter for accessing our Wi-Fi at home.

My questions are...

(A) Is there a free OS out there that would satisfactorily run on this old laptop, and if so, which would you favor?

(B) Before starting a new OS install, how do I wipe Windows XP off?

It will see very light duty, as a fall back for our desktop and current laptop. Mainly just web surfing and maybe e-mail. All help from you tech savvy FReepers is greatly appreciated.

[knarf]

watching this thread

[ChildOfThe60s]

XUbuntu is designed for low powered laptops.

[nhwingut]

Keep XP. It is the best Microsoft OS.

[edpc]

Pascal or COBOL

[Kommodor]

See post #28 on this thread:

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3166614/posts

[ßuddaßudd]

ßookmark

[DesScorp]

You can still use that laptop, but you're going to have to use a very stripped down version of Linux. You might be able to use something like a Fedora "spin"... such as the XFCE lightweight option... but a lot depends on how much you can expand it.

First off, I have to ask A) how fast is the CPU?, and then B) can you add more memory?

If you can't do the later, that's going to really limit what you can do because modern browsers tend to be very memory hungry. If you're still running Windows, you can go to Crucial.com, and choose the Crucial System Scanner option. Once the scan is done, it'll tell you everything you need to know about your memory, including whether or not you can expand it.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I just put Linux Mint Cinnamon on a similar HP laptop for the same reason. Works great. Perfect for surfing the web and stuff like that. A lot more secure than XP ever thought of being, too.

[Mr. K]

if it still works fine, leave it alone. That’s the best setup for it.

Run CCleaner (free online)

MalwareBytes (Also free)

and Avast antivirus (also free ) to clean it

defrag the drive

stick as much memory in it as you can.

it should still be good for years

[givemELL]

http://www.ghacks.net/download/103309/

The above link modifies the registry to allow continued XP updates through 2019. The link is explained at this link...

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/05/24/get-security-updates-windows-xp-april-2019/

Also, at www.majorgeeks.com the same modification which can be found as a download:

http://www.ghacks.net/2014/05/24/get-security-updates-windows-xp-april-2019/

[Johnny B.]

A "light weight" distribution of Linux should work fine on your laptop. Xubuntu (http://xubuntu.org) would be a reasonable starting point.

Note that you can boot and run it from CD, or better still, load it into a USB thumb drive and boot from that (if your BIOS supports it). This will let you try it out without touching your Windows XP setup.

Make sure to try it out this way before wiping your Windows XP setup, to make sure all of the hardware will work. Linux is good in this regard, but there is a chance your USB network adapter or sound might not work (at least not without a lot of work).

http://xubuntu.org

Here an explanation of how to put Ubuntu (should work just fine with Xubuntu as well) on a USB thumb drive:

http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop/create-a-usb-stick-on-windows

Good luck!

[Organic Panic]

Why remove it?

If you only use it for relatively safe online email and FR it is unlikely you will get any virus.

Just turn off all the services sucking RAM and processor speed and that should keep it running fine. I use a laptop only a generation or two newer to run several machines in my shop and XP has been very stable.

One thing to consider depending on how much you value your time is if you just want it for browsing and email you can pick up very nice tablets for under $200. It will take a good 4 to 5 hours to wipe out and reinstall an OS on an old laptop. If it was my time it wouldn’t be worth the heartbeats.

[ShadowAce]

[Scrambler Bob]

M4L - XP

[steve86]

This old Compaq Armada laptop (PIII also with only 256 MB) has Salix Linux installed. Five tabs open right now.

An even older Armada with a Celeron/Pentium II has Anti-X Linux installed (one version back). Usually only one or two tabs open on that one.

[TomGuy]

When was the last time you called Microsoft to ask for help with the XP?

Just because the discontinue support does not mean you have to dump XP. If it still works and connects and you intend to use it only as a spare in case a later model breaks down, why erase XP?

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

” that converted the Vista OS to Win 7. It was a seamless, though somewhat time consuming install — it works perfectly now and it’s like having a new laptop. Maybe something like this might be in order.”

Win 7 needs massive RAM to work well, but work well it does. W7 needs 4 GB to work right, IMO. I would probably stay with XP as long as possible, though I am not knowledgeable about Linux and other OS’s. You should be able to buy cheap RAM for it (because it’s old stuff) and I would jam as much RAM as I could in there.

[truth_seeker]

Reference

[GeronL]

Probably too old for Ubuntu or Mint Linux (but maybe not) but there are many variety of smaller Linux programs.

When you reformat the HDD everything will be lost. So you better keep any old files you might want to keep.

[Trod Upon]

There is a very simplified Linux distro called Puppy Linux. Limited, but very small and simple.