Hello, fairly new linux user, trying to convert and combine from WinXP

[thecrazydudesrd]

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Thank you Terpic and Fanderal for the warning about how hardware might be a bit late on drivers. I wasn't plotting anything too crazy... Something that $500us can get me.

Highland, Suprisingly both are 64 bit systems, I've only had 32 bit os's XD
The Desktop is an AMD Athlon 64 x2 (dual core)
The Laptop is a Intel Core 2

[mizzle]

Video memory/gpu power is going to be the weak link in your older system. I suggest using a distro or spin with a light weight desktop. Linux Minut with Xfce would probably run okay. Other lighter distros such as Crunchbang (#!) should run well on that machine as well. I have #! Running on an old Dell Latitude D600, and it's functional (but very sluggish). I feel your PC with 4-8x the RAM and a MUCH faster CPU will be able to handle #! just fine.

[MadmanRB]

I personally reccomend something like Xubuntu for the long time XP user as the XFCE desktop is simplistic and easy for a windows newcommer.

[elija]

Xubuntu is the best of the buntu family but Mint Xfce will look more familiar out of the box to a Windows user as the menu is in the right place and it's the excellent Whisker menu!

[TNFrank]

If you'll not be running more then 4GB of RAM(and most older XP systems won't support more then that) then a 32bit Op System is fine.
Don't be afraid of the Terminal, it's one of the best tools you have for doing things quickly and efficiently. I can update all the software on my install with a simple "sudo apt-get update" and "sudo apt-get upgrade" command in Terminal. Try doin' that with Windows.
Also, if you know the name of the package then 9 times out of 10 it'll be in the Repository(Repo) of the Distro that you're running and you can easily install it from Terminal as well with a simple "sudo apt-get install 'package name' " command. Sometimes the package name and what shows up in your menu will be different so you can't always go by the name in the menu. Case in point, "System Profiler and Benchmark" which is a handy tool for seeing what you have installed on your system and what hardware you have. It's called "hardinfo" for install purposes so a quick "sudo apt-get install hardinfo" will get you the handy tool.
Anyway, the more you hang out in your Linux install the more use to it you'll get and pretty soon you'll not even remember how to do anything in Windows, LOL.

[thecrazydudesrd]

Thanks Madman and Elija, I've been checking out more of those builds, really like them... although for this laptop, I'm thinking of going Cinnamon on it.

Also TNFrank, I've been liking the Terminal stuff so far, strangely some of the stuff I've been used to using tend to work better when installed via terminal vs downloaded XD
Also I'll most definitely check out some of the cool stuff that will come 'round.

But so far!
-Backed up LE1700, got a new drive for it, installed Linux Mint; Cinnamon. Which was fun without having a keyboard... my external DVD used both USB ports, wish my keyboard was bluetooth for that... but found the virtual keyboard for it and got things going.

I'll keep you all tuned in for further advances!

Edit- So far so good, except the thing's not recognizing the wacom tablet screen... I've found something called; linuxwacom that deals with some of that. It's looking like I'm gonna have to go tweaking things.

[kelmore]

Hi! I am newbie.

[thecrazydudesrd]

Hi Kelmore, gotta start somewhere right?

Well, so I went ahead and installed the System Profiler to see if somehow I could figure out how linux configured my LE1700's wacom interface. Because I have *some* use of the wacom pen, simply as a mouse with a single button, (It's the original pen for it, it has the two tips and single button in the center.) So pretty much only got left click and no pressure sensitivity. I'm not daunted yet though. I quite like the quickness of this OS on this system and I believe I can somehow reel this problem. Just gotta get some sleep for work. However the system is installed and I have the weekend to set things up right.