Converting old MS or Linux...if you guys can help!

Doumiwia

I have recently acquired a hunk of junk(XP Comp) from the basement.

The box currently has

BIOS: Phoenix - AwardBIOS v6.00PG

Processor: AMD Sempron(tm) 2400+, MMX, 3DNow, 1.67GHz

Memory: 512MB RAM

Let me know if there is anything else you might need to know.

I want to completely erase the old settings and start fresh because I don't need any of the files on this computer. Let me know which version you think would work best for this computer.

ben

Newbie ? these may help :
- Fedora Core 14
- XUbuntu
- Puppy
- DSL
...

Experienced user ?:
- LXDE
- Debian
- Slax
- Slackware
- Suse
...

take a look at http://distrowatch.com/ to get a lot of options, just stay away from latest full blown distros with a fully loaded Gnome/KDE and Compiz environment. If you don't need XWindow every distro should fit fine with the hw you've (you've quite good machines), if you'd like to have X loaded try to install XFCE / Fluxbox or light windows managers instead of Gnome/KDE.
You may even try a lot of them just with a live CD, boot from it and test them, if you're happy or familiar with a particular distro stay with it (you only need to understand you're using the system from a CD so disk access is terribly slow if compared with a common hd)
Let us know your results :-)

Doumiwia

Ya I'm basically a newbie. I have taken the CCNA courses in a crash course style over a month about a year or two ago and lightly looked into CCNP routing course. I understood most of what was discussed. I look forward to digging into the computer industry and learning a lot in the next 3-8 months. I just recently switched from a Pre-pharmacy major to a network security major so I need some tinker toys. Last Night I tried to install Ubuntu 10.10 from a disk but it didn't work. I was heading to bed when it told me it didn't finish correctly and i've been busy at school all day so I won't be back to the computer until around 5 hours from now. The first time I tried it I had to take out the battery because the BIOS had a password on it. After that I tried to create a single partition with only linux on it. When it got to the error part it said that the cd might need to be written at a slower speed or that maybe my cd/dvd drive is dusty/broken. Like I said I was just heading to bed when it told me this so I didn't exactly log the details mentally or T-shoot.
Thanks for your help. I'll be sure to post more when I get a chance to look at it again.

ben

still here if you need it

duck1dong

Puppy 5.2 Lucid full install with the lupu_devx_52.sfs file for compiler put into the mnt/home folder so the boot manager can see it, will be decent. The full instructions for hard drive partitioning are available on the main page. Where a driver exists so your sound card works, I dont know yet. My riptide combo card in the HP 4455 doesnt seem to work yet, here are the drivers http://www.linuxant.com/drivers/

mfillpot

You you been able to successfully install the drivers from the source package?