I’ve got an old (XP pentium 4) PC that I’d like to bring back to useful life with some more memory and possibly a reboot with an easy to use Linux OS. I use an eeepc notebook with the default (xandros?) linux OS and I think it’s relatively easy to use / maintain / upgrade etc, but are there any more simple (i.e. GUI based) linux OS’s that would be well suited to refresh my PC?

Or should I go windows 7?

(PC gets used for mainly office stuff and some photo storage / manipulation)

Thanks!

Old pc will struggle with photo manipulation. The other stuff it will be fine with.

I’d imagine that XP would be way quicker than Windows 7, and you can pick-up ex. company owned unregistered/unactivated copies of XP on eBay for around £20. I’ve bought a fair few off one seller.

xubuntu and crunchbang

photo manipulation.. old pc not ideal.. but depends on how big the images are etc.. might not cost a fortune to add more RAM which may help

people did/must of edited photos on a p4 years ago….

I put Unbuntu 11 on my Sony Netbook and it runs much faster than the Windows 7 Starter edition that it came with.

It duals boots and so can use either OS

posting this from a 2.80ghz p4 with 2 gig in it running on XP, works fine. for photo manipulation, well it’s not the same as my imac in work, but I’ve got cs3 on it and it’s useable..for what i do in the house i don’t really need much more.

ubuntu or mint are decent os’s these days mind but you can’t get potatoshop for them and the gimp is rotten..

How much RAM can you go to?

As an aside,

You really want to consider getting rid of Xandros on the EEE. It turned ours into a different (ie, usable) machine when I wiped it in favour of Eeebuntu.

ta, it runs XP at the moment and is dog slow – constant thrashing etc – I’ve just ordered 2gb RAM (it’s 512kb at the mo) so that should whip it up a bit

when I say photo manipulation I’m not talking big time photoshop, just family snaps

Crunchbang sounds interesting, newbie q; is it best to start from a formatted HD?

I’ve just ordered 2gb RAM (it’s 512kb at the mo) so that should whip it up a bit

will make a world of difference, Couple of years ago i went from 512 to 2gig on my work pc(same as the one in the house) and it really was night and day.

will make a world of difference

Yup, absolutely. You’ve answered your own question here.

Despite Intel’s marketing machine telling you that you’ll need an i7 to even think about opening an image or browsing the web, RAM has always been the key to Windows performance.

Ubuntu bought a laptop I have back from the dead. Not done any photo stuff with it though.

Cougar; re: Eeebuntu, do you have any links to a decent how to?

(PC gets used for mainly office stuff and some photo storage / manipulation)

If you’re using it for Microsoft Office stuff get Windows, whatever its fans may claim Open/Libre Office isn’t compatible, and is horrible to use. If you’re just using it to knock up letters to the bank and the like, it’ll get the job done and is of course free.

TBH I’d be inclined to run Windows for the photo manipulation stuff too, I’ve yet to find a decent linux replacement for Paint.Net, let alone Photoshop. (And yes, I’ve tried gimp…)

cheers, I was thinking that although open office is ok the paint / pic applications on my eee are ropey – shame really!

I personally use linux on all my personal machines now. My main laptop is running Mint and I’ve been very impressed by it. If you’re just doing light photo stuff then Gimp is alright, it’s not amazing but I’ve designed a reasonable amount of stuff in it and used it to cut up psd’s etc… Also, if Gimp isn’t your cup of tea then Inkscape is pretty good though a bit different.

Picasa is also pretty good for organizing your photos too.

If you’re feeling brave then it’s also worth trying to embrace the linux terminal, it can make life very easy for you!

Run Windows XP. I still use it on 2 old laptops in the house. Its been great, extremely stable ( in fact I cant remember the last crash either of them had ) . Tried Linux in various forms, but I went back to XP every time.

Inkscape

That not an illustrator type thing?

My main laptop is running Mint

Sorry for the tangent but,

What advantages does Mint have over Ubuntu / other distro?

I’ve got to say unless your a pro or really into playing with photos as a hobby gimp is more than adequate. Of course it’s not photoshop so if you’re accustomed to doing things the photoshop way you will have to relearn stuff, but it’s a different program so of course you will!

As for OO vs word / excel e.t.c both programs are only any good for small basic documents, anything serious should be moved onto different programs.

What advantages does Mint have over Ubuntu / other distro?

To be honest I’m not entirely sure, I was using Ubuntu but didn’t really get on with 11 so decided to try out Mint 11 (built on ubuntu 11). I also find Ubuntu based distro’s to be the “nicest” to use for everyday home use, that’s probably just a personal thing though.

I did have a dabble with Debian but it’s a bit agricultural and due to being more of a server type distro it can take quite a long time for packages to reach the stable repositories.

I’ve got to say unless your a pro or really into playing with photos as a hobby gimp is more than adequate

It’ll do what you want to do, but it’s just so clunky when you’re used to a photoshop style programme.

Hadn’t heard of Inkscape, but it does look like an Illustrator / Corel Draw style app. Any other linux based options? (I have linux at work…)

Hadn’t heard of Inkscape, but it does look like an Illustrator / Corel Draw style app. Any other linux based options?

think scribus is your quark/indesign linux equivalent.