Just dabbling with Ubuntu on an old laptop for my daughter that is dog slow with Vista and it appears to be better for browsing.

Any tips or experiences worth sharing?

I put it on a laptop I gave to my mum. She doesn’t seem to have any problems (or at least doesn’t bother me with them)

Rachel

I do know a fair bit about computers, but Ubuntu is simple to use for most people. advice….. check out the ubuntu software centre, its full of free stuff. play about with it to get used to it.

Although I do web stuff for a living I’m not a geek, I have ubuntu on a netbook, I find it as easy as XP for browsing – maybe a bit a pig to set up, I had help to get the right drivers and stuff but we had it done in an hour (and 2 beers)

Ubuntu 10.04LTS/10.10 is great on older laptops. Had 10.04LTS on my ancient Packard Bell, and it fair zips along. It did everything I used to use Windows for, but doesn’t take 10 minutes to boot. I’ve recently upgraded to 11.04 and it’s noticeably slower, although still infinitely better than when I was running Vista. Depending on the spec of your daughter’s PC, maybe stick with the 10.04LTS version.

I had Ubuntu installed on the computer up stairs for a couple of years, my nipper never had a problem with it. Simple to use as only gets technical if you do.

I use Mint which is an Ubuntu varient and it just works. I’m only a minor geek.

Installing Ubuntu now cheers

The new version has a horrid desktop, good luck with it. And runs very slow.

Would it help an aged (1.4gHz/128mB ram) pc?

My father in law is 80 and the least technical person on the planet.

I gave him a netbook with ubuntu 9 on and he’s not bothered me since despite bothering me for years previously about XP and a macbook someone gave him.

Using Dell Mini 9 at the moment. Came with Dell branded Ubuntu Netbook mix, but after updates over couple of years that filled the 4gb SSD. Now using Lubuntu which is much lighter and only uses half the SSD.

Browser is Chrome. Lubuntu is great and would recommend for older hardware used for basic tasks, web / email etc.

edit 1.6ghz atom with 500mb ram. Browser with 2/3 tabs feels light and fast, but heavy scripts / ads on a tab can stall it for a second or two every now and again.

I just tried Puppy Linux 5.3 “Slacko” about 10 mins ago after creating an ISO bootable Live CD. Bloody hell … it’s faster than my Windows 7.

I might dual boot in future but before that I tried creating Ubuntu Live CD but it just did not work on my system and it simply gave me rainbow colour monitor screen. 🙄

So let’s see if Puppy Linux will be my choice.

Would it help an aged (1.4gHz/128mB ram) pc?

Probably, but I’d look at an older version not the latest release… 10.04 should be ok…

RAM should be dirt cheap for that machine on ebay though now, dunno what spec it requires, but even just doubling it, or upping it to 512meg will make a massive difference!

Would it help an aged (1.4gHz/128mB ram) pc?

You should try “Puppy Linux” that chewkw mentioned. It’s been designed specifically to scale onto older hardware. It’s not flashy, but it’ll work just fine on a decades-old machine that couldn’t possibly hope to run windows.

Cheers gents…am looking into what ram I can use – I got a 1gB stick for £6 but it don’t work on me machine 🙁

Try the Memory Advisor™ at Crucial?

ta Cougar, I’d hoped there was something out there like that!

It says 1 x 256mB SDRAM per slot, I’ll look for 2 on scumbay, I’ve read that ECC is OK (though it’s slower and the benefits are lost) on non ECC motherboards – is this the case?

Found some non ECC 256 sticks and will look at pussy linux also.

Bah the frikking memory doesn’t work in me pc 😡

Is there a failsafe way to get something that will work @ ebay prices rather than £100 per gB @ Crucial?

I’ve used Ubuntu variants before but I just ended up using XP for the sake of familiarity. My last two XP licences have been read off stickers attached to PCs binned at the side of the road (possibly because they were using XP).