[SOLVED] installing linux on a DELL INSPIRON 1200?

[soctal]

hello. total linux noob here. I have a dell inspiron 1200, 5 to 7 years old, i forget. it has windows xp3 on it.
its 512 Ram, 60 GB hard drive, CELERON M processor.

it wasnt top of the line when i brought it. i just wanted a decent second computer. i normally keep it offline except for emergencies. i never ran a antivirus program regular like i should. now its so loaded with bugs it doesnt work. it crashes when i try to run the anti virus software, so now I am going to re format it and clean the hard drive.

i am seriously thinking about installing linux on the computer. i would like to, I need to know:
1. which linux version should i use? i ordered a 1 gb Ram from dell, thursday, so that will be 1Gb of Ram instead of the 512 it has now.
that is still not a lot of ram, though. I have used ubuntu lts on my vps server, but that is the only one i have used.

2. i need it to work with my brother's laser printer, my epson photo r320 printer, my epson scanner, the last two are about 5 years old, the laser is about 2 years oldm my wacom tablet, about 4 years old, and MYBOOK external hard drive. will i be able to use this hardware with linux?

i would like to use MS OFFICE 2003 suite on it, and adobe CS3 software primarily. i havent kept up with the latest open source software, can someone provide any feedback on this?
thanks!

[electroman6913]

Try out Mint or Ubuntu. I would try to use Linux native apps. MS OFFICE and adobe may work in wine but it is easier to install LibreOffice and Gimp.
Printers and external hard drives should work fine. buy the way you can use a live Linux CD to clean viruses on your computer so you don't even have to start windows to fix it.

[nixblog]

I would look at something lighter such as Lubuntu, Xubuntu or even antiX seeing as you have a Celery CPU. You would need WINE to run MS applications but as alreay said, I would not bother running WINE. Look to LibreOffice and GIMP as replacements.

[soctal]

thanks folks!
I am going to do it! as soon as my 1gb of memory comes so i can install it!
i am downloading lubuntu and also a linux mix called uberstudent I just came across. being in school, it sounds very interesting. it's between those two.

i confess i dont know what you mean by "live" Linux CD
do i install by burning the program to a cd or dvd then just opening it on my laptop without needing to reformat the hard drive?

[MASONTX]

Welcome. Co to distrowatch.com, and download your choice of distro's (linux distributions), then burn the ISO to a disk. This is a live disk, or a disk which you can run linux off of to try it. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot first from the disk drive instead of the hard drive. If you like the distro, then you can install it to your HD. If you have any questions, just ask.

[soctal]

groovy, thanks Masontx!