Linux and other things perhaps

[mister_mm]

So...my friend hdd is dying...I ran tests..windows won't boot....what can he do with this 2002 Dell system?...he needs to get online..after tests on his HDD..it is dying..9 years old....in 9 years the man has no clue about these things,,,Help Me!!!....to be honest I have not run Linux in years...after getting over my hobbyist stages...so I said told him "try to run a live Linux CD"...he had no clue...so I tried Slitax Linux on his system..hmm...why only French keyboard layouts?...this would confuse my friend no end,,,,Puppy Linux would see his old Windows drive well enough...but could not find drivers for his ehO...it sees it as ..but no joy..I tried all....finally just for fun..I tried DSL...and SOB..he was online..the linux community has a long way to go letting DSL go..oh the reason I was using such small distros is that I have a cellular hookup and I am not waiting all week for a distro to download...just in case you wondered...I have always been a fan of GNU but after all these years there always is a driver (module) problem...in every system....and I do understand it is a community...live with it....tchau

[jayd512]

You might want to talk a look at antiX, as well.
We have a few folks here who love it, and use it on new computers, as well as old.
Even if you can't replace the HDD, you can install it to a USB drive.
A how-to can be found here.

[MASONTX]

If download speed is a problem, distrowatch.com can sell you an ubuntu 11.04 cd for $1.75, and Welcome to Linux Cd.org - Best prices for your favorite distro! among others offer linux cd's at reasonable rates. Do a search on linux cd's to get a list. On a 9 year old computer, Ubuntu 11.01 may not run, Antix, lubuntu, and other low resource distro's would be better. Go to distrowatch.com and do a search for older computers, and a list of distro's suitable for older computers will come up.