Moving an old machine to Linux

[Ramses II CP]

I have a old AMD box (~800 mhz, 384 ram, GeForce something 64 meg MMX card, and a 40 gig HD with an ancient 13 gig backup) that is now my daughter's computer. I moved it to XP a year or two ago to keep it surfable, but it's really barely capable of running the games and things she does online. Sometime in the next year or two I'm building a new box for myself, so the time has come to reclaim that XP install and try to get some more life out of that tired old hardware.

First question: Has anyone reclaimed an XP install from a machine? I've got a couple of links to MS that seem to make it fairly clear, but I'd love to hear from someone who has actually done it.

Second question: Right now I have Fedora downloaded (From about 6 months ago when I first decided to try it) and I'm probably going to use it. Anyone want to try to sell me on a different distro? I have an Enterprise Linux distro floating around somewhere too that I installed for my wife awhile ago, but it doesn't seem suitable and I know a lot less about it.

Third question: I'm a Linux noob. I used a few flavors of Unix at my last tech job, but never had to go through an install and I'd consider myself a novice at best. Still, I'm planning to get it done this weekend. Anyone want to shoot that plan down? Any idea what the main hurdles will be?

Thanks for any help/comments!

[Xiahou]

Personally, I like Mandriva. But it's really a personal choice. Coming primarily from a MS Windows background I think it made for a smoother transition than some distros. I can't really speak from experience though- I used RedHat some years ago, tried Mandrake, loved it and never looked back. So I haven't really spent much time with other distros. Until about a year ago, I ran Mandrake10 on an old 700Mhz AMD box w/512MB or RAM. Just about a year ago, I upgraded to Mandriva2007 and an AthlonXP 2800+ w/1GB of RAM.

Regardless, I think it's a great idea to install on a separate machine so you can play around as much as you want without messing anything up. Although, in my case that separate machine quickly became nigh indispensable once I started loading software/services onto it.

As I posted in the other thread, here is a questionnaire that can supposedly recommend some distros that are a good fit for you based on your answers. Have fun.

[Blodrast]

Second question: Right now I have Fedora downloaded (From about 6 months ago when I first decided to try it) and I'm probably going to use it. Anyone want to try to sell me on a different distro? I have an Enterprise Linux distro floating around somewhere too that I installed for my wife awhile ago, but it doesn't seem suitable and I know a lot less about it.

Third question: I'm a Linux noob. I used a few flavors of Unix at my last tech job, but never had to go through an install and I'd consider myself a novice at best. Still, I'm planning to get it done this weekend. Anyone want to shoot that plan down? Any idea what the main hurdles will be?

Thanks for any help/comments!

Don't really have any preferences among distros - any of the major ones (Fedora/RH, Ubuntu, Debian, Suse) are probably ok.
Since this is a test box, you might wanna play around with a few and see what you like - over time, of course.
Check this out: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major
It lists the most popular distros (according to them, it's not an "official" thing, supported by any real figures; however, it's probably close enough).

Haven't made a Debian install in a while, but last time I did, it was damn (user-) unfriendly. Hope they've improved on that since.

As for the installation itself, I don't expect any major hurdles. Again, I've installed a Fedora a long time ago, and things have certainly changed since, but I'll throw my two cents in - which may or may not be an issue anymore.

- if they are still using the predefined configurations (e.g., Desktop, Laptop, Server, etc), I'd suggest you didn't use them. Instead, go with "Custom", i.e. the option that lets you select individual packages. Don't worry about not selecting all packages properly, it will figure out and resolve dependencies by itself.
There are two reasons why I'm suggesting this:
1. The most important one is that when you're selecting packages, you can also see what they mean/do. This will help you get somewhat familiar with the huge number of things that's out there. Why does it matter ? Because it's common to want an application that does "that", but you don't know what it's called, and therefore don't know how to look for it. Plus, it's good to have an idea what's installed on your machine, no ?
2. The second reason, which may (hopefully) no longer be an issue, is that RH/Fedora used to have a really stupid definition of those predefined configurations. I used them once, and that was one time too many.

- I assume you won't want any dual-boot fancy partitioning scheme, so you should be able to partition it with any of the options they're offering you. (At least that used to be the case: they'd let you partition your disk with 2 or 3 alternatives, varying from a nice GUI that would only allow you to do basic things, down to the actual (command-line-based) backend that actually is behind that GUI). If that is still the case, I'd recommend you avoid DiskDruid, if they still use it, and go with whatever else they're offering.
The GUI might be sufficient, but you might wanna consider trying fdisk or cfdisk, whichever they're offering. Don't let yourself intimidated by the fact that they're command line: with 3 key presses you can create a partition.

- install gcc and development libs, so that you can compile your own things, if need be; it's always useful to have those; it's true that in general you can find an RPM (i.e., a precompiled binary) for whatever you want, but sometimes you may have to fall back on (re)compiling some source code for who-knows-what drivers and/or packages.

That's all I can think of off the top of my head, good luck, and tinker away, that's the whole beauty of it!

[caravel]

Ubuntu all the way.

[Ramses II CP]

After playing with live discs for a few hours it looks like Ubuntu has native support for the wireless adapter I'm using on that machine, whereas there's a somewhat more complicated procedure to try to get it working with Fedora. Ubuntu it'll be for the moment.

[caravel]

Wireless is pretty much never straightforward on any Linux distro at the moment, but it's getting better all the time. You may struggle a bit but don't give up hope and check out the official Ubuntu forums if you get in a bit of bother, they are very good - and specific to the distro itself which helps a lot.

[Ramses II CP]

I was pretty impressed; with Ubuntu all I had to do was change a few settings and reboot and it was ready to connect. I've found a good set of instructions on how to get it working with Suse as well but I got sick this weekend and didn't get to work through it. This is with a fairly popular (and cheap) little Iogear USB adapter.

I'm still taking pokes at it through the week, when my time is more limited, and this next weekend I'm hoping to finalize my pick and finish the install. Ubuntu has a clear head start with that wireless support, natch.

[caravel]

I'd avoid SUSE/openSUSE as it's now part of Novell. If you want to try a redhat like distro try Fedora or Mandriva perhaps. Ubuntu is a Debian based distro and personally I prefer Debian based to Redhat based because Debian package management is quite a bit better. The Ubuntu repositaries are excellent also. There's almost every bit of software you'll ever need to be found there. Ubuntu also has compiz integrated which is pretty impressive. If you downloaded gutsy gibbon then compiz is already installed it just needs configuring, all the info to do that is at the forums.

Have you installed your graphics card drivers yet? Which card is it?

[Ramses II CP]

I didn't install any drivers for the vid card yet; would that improve performance on kid's browser games (Shockwave, 'VirTools,' etc.)? That's mostly all she does, sites like Starfall and such. I've been quite impressed with Ubuntu so far, but it'll be next weekend before I can do any major work on it.

[caravel]

I didn't install any drivers for the vid card yet; would that improve performance on kid's browser games (Shockwave, 'VirTools,' etc.)? That's mostly all she does, sites like Starfall and such. I've been quite impressed with Ubuntu so far, but it'll be next weekend before I can do any major work on it.

It speeds up the GUI, and adds opengl support for games. How easy it is and how well it works all depends on which card you have though. If it's an Nvidia you have then try enabling the restricted drivers from (gasp! it's the gui !) system -> administration restricted drivers manager. This is the easiest way to do it.

If on the other hand it's an ATI card things are probably going to be much more complicated and I recommend you do not try that, as you could be rebooting to a blank screen. First you'll need to get more familiar with fglrx and how it is installed, configured and fixed the normal way.

-Edit just checked your first post and realised you have an Nvidia card. You can try it but people seem to have more problems with the old 4 and especially 5 series MX cards than the newer ones. If you do boot to a black screen there's ways to fix it, but you may want to post in the official forums for advice before you attempt it.

[Ramses II CP]

I'm not overly worried about a blank screen or any other big failures. The machine is clean, there's no data to be concerned about and I have those LiveCDs and an XP one. I keep forgetting to check, but I believe it's a 4200 MMX card. I never was happy with that card, bought it off a friend for cheap and it performed like it, so I won't be surprised if it gives me more trouble in it's elderly days.

Still probably this weekend before I can get deep into it.

[R'as al Ghul]

A bit off-topic:
If you've an old machine or parts lying around why not set it up with "Damn Small Linux" which weighs only 50 MB. It's impressive how fast old machines can be and fun, too. DSL can boot from CD, USB-Stick or Harddisk.
You can install DSL on a stick and still have plenty of space for your own files. You can go to any machine that can boot from USB and use the hardware of the machine without accessing the harddisk. It also comes with quemu and can be run from inside Windows. It's based on Knoppix.

Of course, it's not to be seen as an alternative to full blown distros like Fedora, Suse or Ubuntu.

R'as