Linux

[bassjunkie]

Hi All, would like to play with Linux on a old P4 1.8ghz system any recomendations on with version please?

[directhex]

Assuming a real graphics card (i.e. not some SiS monstrosity), just stick with the latest Ubuntu.

[Bagnaj97]

I'd also say go with Ubuntu, it's one of the easiest distributions to use and is the most widely used. There's also plenty of help available from decent documentation, ubuntuforums.org and various mailing lists.

New releases of Ubuntu have had a horrible, buggy interface (Unity) installed. You can still get to the old decent interface (Gnome) from the login screen by selecting the "Ubuntu (Classic)" option at the login screen after entering your username. Alternatively you could install the last LTS (Long Term Support) release which is 10.04 which will benefit from bug and security fixes until April 2013. Non-LTS releases are only supported for 18 months.

All that said a P4 1.8 system is pretty old. How much RAM does it have? 512MB or more and Ubuntu will be alright, if it's less than that then it may be worth considering something else.

[bassjunkie]

It currently has a MX400 32mb, with 640mb ram, ubuntu sounds a safe bet and thank you for the advice on the interface I will let you know how I get on. Cheers again.

[Behemoth]

I tried the latest ubuntu on my Quad Core Xeon box and found 11.04 to be really sluggish, thats with a 512 Meg Radeon X1950 Pro aswell.

[jackvdbuk]

New releases of Ubuntu have had a horrible, buggy interface (Unity) installed. You can still get to the old decent interface (Gnome) from the login screen by selecting the "Ubuntu (Classic)" option at the login screen after entering your username.

ah that'd be why i didnt recognise it from years ago i installed mint on my netbook, good OS and enjoying it so far (also has codec support built in)

[ikonia]

I tried the latest ubuntu on my Quad Core Xeon box and found 11.04 to be really sluggish, thats with a 512 Meg Radeon X1950 Pro aswell.

you'll find that down to your graphics card not being configured properly.

[no_numb]

If I were you on a pc of that spec I'd try looking at lubuntu or kubuntu or xubuntu. These are slightly lighter weight versions and will run better on older hardware. Puppy linux is amazing and will run very quick but it takes a lot of setting up!

[peterb]

Although I haven't researched it in any depth, Unity looks as if it built on Gnome3, which is the 'latest and greatest' release of the Gnome desktop environment.

Gnome 3 ships with Fedora core 15 onward, and certainly requires a more capable graphics card to run properly, but it does (at least in the FC15 implementation) revert to a legacy mode (very similar to Gnome 2) if the graphics capability isn't good enough.

As for the G3 interface itself... I'm struggling to like it, some aspects are quite good, but it is a new experience, and I do wonder if it change fir exchange's sake, or perhaps to be easier to use on a tablet.

Some bits are definitely rough round the edges, the windows manager AWM for example, but they are early days, and I'm sure those rough edges will be smoothed off in time.

(Ikonia, good to see you back here!)

[MSIC]

As for the G3 interface itself... I'm struggling to like it, some aspects are quite good, but it is a new experience, and I do wonder if it change fir exchange's sake, or perhaps to be easier to use on a tablet.

Agreed - in fact, I upgraded what was (i think) Ubuntu 10.10 with Gnome 2 environment to Gnome 3, and something clearly didnt work well - my interface / fonts etc was all.... Win2k-like. I tried changing drivers, the 3d effects etc etc, all to no avail. The only option in the end for me was to remove the whole OS and start again.

As for the original post, i'd be very inclined from personal experience to recommend Xubuntu - it is a very simple interface and environment that simply works, and in quite a logical way for me.
I do read that Lubuntu is a 'lighter' / quicker environment, but a P4 based machine should still be fine for either.
I agree with others above though - avoid the 'Unity' interface, which has been standard on Ubuntu recently - for me, it's simply not production ready, and I feel like Canonical (who drive and create all of these-mentioned distributions of GNU/Linux) are using us all as large-scale beta-testers. I might well come good one day, but today is not that day.

[beckieM]

For older PC's, I think Puppy or Damn Small Linux are the bests. These ones running fine on old machines. And the Puppy-community are very nice and helpful.