some beginner questions

**kevinatkins** · July 9th, 2008

Hi Widespread,

your system specs look OK to run Ubuntu - it won't be really quick, and depending on the graphics system on the machine, you may not be able to run the snazzy desktop effects, but it should run OK. The main thing is memory - you need at least 384MB to run the installer.

As for your wireless - yes, you may need to fiddle to get that working. I don't have personal experience of the Broadcom chipset, but chances are you might need to run a Windows driver within a Linux wrapper (known as NDISWrapper) - don't panic, it's not as complicated as it sounds. But! This is one of my big bugbears with Ubuntu - other distributions take a more sensible approach to NDISWrapper, but with Ubuntu, you'll have to compile it from source, and every time there's a kernel upgrade (which is relatively often, as part of the normal system updates), you'll have to compile it again. It's really not difficult, and there's plenty of help out on the web, but it's a nuisance, nonetheless.... Mandriva Linux is better in this respect (from memory - it's been a while since I used that)

You absolutely will not damage any of your hardware running Linux, rest assured of that.

I suggest you just dive in - burn a CD, run a 'Live' session from the CD and see how everything works, then install if you like it.. Oh, you can also install Ubuuntu to run 'inside' Windows, which has to be the lowest risk way of evaluating it - just pop the CD in whilst you're in Windows and run the Wubi installer!

**widespread** · July 9th, 2008

milan_cortana, annda, bhadotia--thanks for the info on booting issues, and MBR. I will look into it more.

abn91c- thanks for the wubi-installer, it will really help if i go with ubuntu.

Inxsible, kevinatkins- thanks for the info. Do you guys think I should go with Xubuntu instead? Im looking for this computer mainly to surf the web while in the library at school, maybe write some word docs, nothing too big I think. Its just the old laptop is lighter and smaller than my main laptop, which makes it easy to carry back and forth.

**Inxsible** · July 9th, 2008

Originally Posted by widespread

milan_cortana, annda, bhadotia--thanks for the info on booting issues, and MBR. I will look into it more.

abn91c- thanks for the wubi-installer, it will really help if i go with ubuntu.

Inxsible, kevinatkins- thanks for the info. Do you guys think I should go with Xubuntu instead? Im looking for this computer mainly to surf the web while in the library at school, maybe write some word docs, nothing too big I think. Its just the old laptop is lighter and smaller than my main laptop, which makes it easy to carry back and forth.

Its your preference really. What it does depend on is how much memory you have and the power of your CPU.
Can you tell us your system specs...so we can make a better guess?

Gnome - is bloated, IMO. It installs a bunch of apps that I mostly dont use. So I end up having to remove that. Xfce also does the same, although to a lesser degree and therefore is much lighter than Gnome in terms of memory footprint.

If web browsing and some document editing is the primary use of the computer, then Xubuntu will suffice. (although it can definitely do a lot more)

Heck..even a minimalist WM like Openbox or Pekwm or IceWM would be sufficient to do what you need

**kevinatkins** · July 9th, 2008

Xubuntu may be a good choice. I personally prefer the Gnome desktop, but Xubuntu is pretty good. You could always install Xubuntu alongside regular Ubuntu and choose which to use - there's really no difference between them apart from the desktop, so you just need to install the Xubuntu-desktop package and you'll have the choice. Also, for general word-processing duties, you may find that Abiword is better suited to a slower machine than the full-blown OpenOffice, which is mega heavy on system resources...

**Frenske** · July 9th, 2008

Originally Posted by widespread

milan_cortana, annda, bhadotia--thanks for the info on booting issues, and MBR. I will look into it more.

abn91c- thanks for the wubi-installer, it will really help if i go with ubuntu.

Inxsible, kevinatkins- thanks for the info. Do you guys think I should go with Xubuntu instead? Im looking for this computer mainly to surf the web while in the library at school, maybe write some word docs, nothing too big I think. Its just the old laptop is lighter and smaller than my main laptop, which makes it easy to carry back and forth.

I think you can run the normal Ubuntu with your laptop and certainly if XP was no problem. If I remember correctly it also has a decent graphics card. The latest Ubuntu has a good manager and my graphics card and wireless broadband (a bit dinky on 7.10) work flawless.

If you are just going to use the internet and maybe open office. Perhaps you could just consider Xubuntu to keep every thing running smooth and fast. But I will warn you, Linux can be addictive and later you want more.