Steel Samurai Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 So, my faithful XP laptop has bit the bullet after only 8 months of ownership (though it was refurbished) I accidentally uninstalled the sound card drivers, and now they will not work, even after repeated installations. The wireless will not work either, for reasons unknown. I've toyed with the idea of buying a hard drive and dual booting XP and a Linux distro on my PC for awhile, but hadn't bought the hard drive for that purpose just yet. However, with this development, giving my lappie only the bare necessities of what I need it for for school. (Which is to say, it runs OpenOffice) Regardless, I am now presented with the choice of reinstalling windows or going with a linux distribution. Being the open source fan I am, I would much rather get my laptop out of the hands of the evil microsoft overlords, however, I need to be absolutely sure that it can do everything I need it to. I have absolutely no programming experience, and don't have the time to learn anything. So, I need to know whether I should bother with installing a linux OS or just go with wiping my hard drive and reinstalling windows. Laptop (IBM Thinkpad R52) Specs: 2 gb RAM ~50 gb HDD 1.86 gHz Pentium M processor ATI Mobility Radeon X300 I need it to: Take notes in class Watch DVDs and other videos of various types Connect to my school's VPN Surf the web Nearly everything else my desktop can take care of. Considering the above situation, my questions are: Should I install linux? If so, should I attempt to partition my harddrive and dual boot? What distribution will be the best for someone who has no coding experience? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trq Posted September 29, 2008 Share Posted September 29, 2008 and don't have the time to learn anything. With that kind of attitude you wont get very far with Linux or any new OS really. Linux is quite capable of meeting your needs, but there is always going to be at least some learning curve. A distro like Ubuntu should pretty much work out of the box, but if you actually want to get value from Linux you'll need to do some learning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 and don't have the time to learn anything. With that kind of attitude you wont get very far with Linux or any new OS really. Linux is quite capable of meeting your needs, but there is always going to be at least some learning curve. A distro like Ubuntu should pretty much work out of the box, but if you actually want to get value from Linux you'll need to do some learning. Just to elaborate a bit on what thorpe said. Ubuntu does great user interface with GNOME, but by the same note, most of the power is in the shell. I mean, you can do the things you mentioned with their GUI as if it were any other OS, but I happen to find myself in a terminal window 90% of the time because I find it much easier to work with (I feel like there's much more control in the shell, and there is). Your choice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Samurai Posted September 30, 2008 Author Share Posted September 30, 2008 Let me clarify, I don't have time to learn much, if any programming. I can take an afternoon and learn the OS fine, I think, but between work and school I can't invest the hours into learning a programming language till the end of the semester. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trq Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 You don't need to know any programming to use Linux, it just depends how far you want to take it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkWater Posted September 30, 2008 Share Posted September 30, 2008 You don't need to know any programming to use Linux, it just depends how far you want to take it. Yeah, I mean, it wouldn't hurt to learn shell scripting (or C and C++, but that's a whole other story), but it's not necessary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steel Samurai Posted October 1, 2008 Author Share Posted October 1, 2008 So with that I take it that it would probably be a good idea for me to go ahead and wipe XP and put on Ubuntu? Or should I partition first and dual boot? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trq Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 So with that I take it that it would probably be a good idea for me to go ahead and wipe XP and put on Ubuntu? Or should I partition first and dual boot? Up to you I guess. Ubuntu should do everything you require, but there is probably still a leaning curve involved. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steviewdr Posted October 1, 2008 Share Posted October 1, 2008 Get a livecd, test it. See if it will work with your wireless and sound. Then do a full install. Ubuntu does a good livecd. -steve Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sylvertwst Posted October 7, 2008 Share Posted October 7, 2008 Get a livecd, test it. See if it will work with your wireless and sound. Then do a full install. Ubuntu does a good livecd. -steve aye! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.