Need operating system suggestions for old laptop (Vanity)

Yours truly | 6/25/2014 | Me

[deoetdoctrinae]

I'm trying to determine if it's worth messing with to find a different (and free) operating system for my very old Dell Latitude laptop. It currently has Windows XP SP3, which of course Microsoft no longer supports.

[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

[deoetdoctrinae]

[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.

[Fast Moving Angel]

I like your advice :-) That said, I have a Dell laptop that came with Vista, and bought a MS program 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.

[DesScorp]

“Keep XP. It is the best Microsoft OS.”

The problem with that is twofold.

1 - Security issues: not only is Microsoft not going to release security patches anymore, security vendors.... anti-virus makers, etc... are going to stop supporting the platform this year.

2 - Functionality issues: Websites are already dropping support for IE 8, and Google has made it clear Chrome will soon drop support for XP. So then it becomes a question of how long Firefox support will last. And with damn near everything web-centric now, if a vendor doesn’t support your OS, that means that your computer becomes increasingly useless without Internet capabilities (like Flash for YouTube, etc).

[ShadowAce]

[fedupjohn]

Ping

[Scrambler Bob]

M4L - XP

[deoetdoctrinae]

I’ll need to check and find out if more memory can be added. As to speed, it says 1133MHz on the general specs page, and right below that it says 730MHz, 512MB of RAM.

If nothing else, I could use it as an excellent door stop, as I’d say it probably weighs about 8 pounds, lol.