installing ubuntu on a dell laptop and formatting a hard drive

[nikiporenko]

hello,

i have inherited a rather old dell laptop (dell latitude 110L) which has windows xp installed on it. Its hard drive is full of different stuff related to its previous owner which i am happy to get rid of (he doesnt mind). In order to boost its performance i decided to install ubuntu on it. Therefore, my aim is: to install ubuntu and to format a hard drive. which order do i have to do it in and how? also, is the whole idea of installing ubuntu on an old laptom is a good one? what are the pros and cons of it?

many thanks

[logos34]

which order do i have to do it in and how? also, is the whole idea of installing ubuntu on an old laptom is a good one? what are the pros and cons of it?

just boot the live or alternate install cd, select 'Guided--use entire disk' partitioning option, and away you go. It will overwrite the whole hdd with ubuntu.

If you have less than 384MB ram, you might want to seriously consider Xubuntu, which is designed to run on older, low-spec computers

[agim]

I use Xubuntu on a laptop with 1G ram. You aren't missing out on too much, and it runs so smoothly I would highly recommend it. Though you may want to let someone new start with Ubuntu if the computer can handle it. It does have a couple of cool extra features preloaded. Notably the ability to write Ubuntu to a thumb drive, and preinstalled Compiz. If your friend isn't interested in some of the extras, and just wants a quick computer, go with Xubuntu.

[muteXe]

I agree. Got a very old dell laptop (not sure of model, but it's only got a 10Gb HD in it), and it ran horribly slow with XP on it.
Works very smoothly with Xubuntu on it :)

[nikiporenko]

Thank you very much guys! thats all really helpfull

[nikiporenko]

Notably the ability to write Ubuntu to a thumb drive, and preinstalled Compiz.

what's all that? sorry, i'm new to ubuntu, and not very skilled in computers..

thanks again

[muteXe]

It's possible to boot ubuntu off a memory stick, Ub 8.10 now has an automated tool to let you do create one of these with not much hassle.

Compiz is the "pretty desktop stuff" you can switch on. By default this comes with Ubuntu, but not Xubuntu (although there's nothing to stop you from installing it, if you have a decent graphics card).

[notwen]

# Choice of Intel Celeron M processors 350 (1.3GHz) Pentium M processor 725 (1.6GHz) combined with the Intel 910GML chipset
# Choice of 14.1- or 15-inch XGA (1024 x 768) display
# 256MB to 1.28GB of DDR 333MHz shared4 SDRAM
# Choice of 30GB, 40GB or 60GB hard drives3
# Choice of 8-cell, 43WHr Nickel Metal Hydride or 8-cell 65WHr Smart Lithium Ion Battery
# Standard 24X CD-ROM or choice of 8X DVD-ROM, 24X CD-RW/DVD combination and 8X DVD+/-RW5 optical drives
# Integrated 10/100 Ethernet and 56K6 V92 modem
# Ports include: three USB 2.0, VGA, headphone and microphone
# Optional internal Intel PRO wireless 2200 802.11b/g or Dell Wireless 1350 802.11b/g or Intel PRO wireless 2915 802.11a/b/g or Dell Wireless 1450 802.11a/b/g

You should be able to run Ubuntu w/o too many issues depending on the amount of ram in your machine. Regardless try both using the LiveCDs and determine which you prefer. =]

[nikiporenko]

cool thanx guys
i downloaded both ubuntu and xubuntu, i'll try out both n see which one i prefer!

thanx a lot for your help!