Resurrecting Old PCs
This is just a test article, might expand on it in future =)
Disclaimer: I’m just documenting my experience, and I am in all ways a Linux newb.
To resurrect old PCs or laptops you can give Xubuntu a try, a light weight Linux distro weighing in at a mere 650+ MB.. I did that with my 4-5yr old Fujitsu, and it runs faster now and more stable than when it was on Windows XP SP2.
Screenshot of Xubuntu’s Desktop
1. Installation
I would suggest getting the Xubuntu Live-CD .iso through bittorrent, which is way, way faster. And also, get the Alternate version, which runs in a “text-mode” installer, which I feel is much faster, and works for the older computers with less RAM. The Desktop version runs with a graphical installer which is very slow and seems to hang at 15% of installation while updating system files if you have less than 256MB RAM. The “text-mode” installer installs the same stuff as the graphical one.
Enter in all the standard information such as time zone, keyboard setting etc when prompted. The installer should autodetect all your LAN and wireless cards and graphic card and monitor. The whole installation should take only about 20-30mins.
2. Getting and installing new apps
The Xubuntu uses the graphical package manager called Synaptic to manage the removal/installation of packages. Just browse through the repository to see if there’s anything you like.
If you see a linux application and you really want to download it and install but can’t seem to get the downloaded file to work properly, do always search through Synaptic first, and most probably the app is already in the repository and can be installed with a few clicks.
Once you know the package name, you can always open up a terminal and use:
apt-get install appname
e.g. apt-get install proftpd
Sometimes the comp will request for you to insert the CD… but its just impractical to be around to keep inserting a disc. So go google for the fix to get around this.
For those packages packed into RPMs, .rpm install an application alien to convert the .rpm to a Debian .deb. It can then be installed with Xubuntu’s kpkg.
Some interesting apps to get include: Apache 2 server, MySql, PHP
