I like the simpler older machines.   I like Linux Mint Mate.

I count myself lucky to be able to find the occasional used high power business box from years past which I can buy for cheap then I load up my current Linux Mint Mate disc on it.

Mint will do well on any Core 2 Duo or more modern Intel Chipset.    Each year hundreds of these come off lease and are sold off for peanuts.   $89 is the current low end rate to pick up a new full sized box (free shipping too).

Why full sized Dell business boxes?   Far less fan noise,  better cooling at low noise levels and easier fine dust control (this is what kills the little flat pancake looking PC boxes, dust contamination leading to overheating and eventual processor fan death)

I stick with burning DVDs and seem to be lucky keeping at least one machine in the house with a working DVD/CD read write drive.

Note my system for dust control ---- once or twice a year I use the suck tube on the vacuum to pull all the the dust out of the air filter.   Cat hair, dander and dust is what eventually kills a computer.

This is what stops dust, dander and cat hair from getting inside your box (this will happen up on the desk top too, just takes a little longer).

looks like I need to clean that sucker again ...... need to check the furnace filters too

Hey OF , thanks for mailing that. I was tied up today, sorry for the delay. My machine is an E machine T6524     AMD Althon 64 processor  2.2 GHZ
2000 MHZ FSB. Its about 13 years old, I added  2 gigs of Ram and mechanically its running fine. Im not sure the DVD still has drivers with the Linux installed but it was running good before. I have a driver recovery disc that I made along time ago .  Thanks again!!

Your kidding. What should I do? The specs say 32 bit. I can order a new copy of linux , but what version should I order?  Will the 32 bit linux Im running cause a problem ? Its Mint Mate 16.  It says petra on the homepage somewhere.

What specs are you talking about?   Win XP specs ??? ---- you leave that stuff alone since Mickey was playing all sorts of games all the time with their pet vendors acting in cahoots with them.   Intel did not even have a 64 bit chipset at all back then, only AMD was the only one shipping real 64 bit processors and Wintel as a group lied to the public a whole lot back then about what they were actually doing during that era.    

Win XP wasn't a real 64 bit OS until Service Pack 2 completely matured at rev. 4 ...... and that was like more than halfway through the total XP period of time.

You can load a 32 bit Linux and it will work OK ......  but not optimally.    This is apparently what you were led to do back in the past.    Changing that mistake now is something you don't want to do right now since it will likely break your XP.

LATER ON, ONCE YOU GET PAST HAVING TO USE MS WINDOWS, XP, MICKEY MOUSE AND ANY OF HIS LITTLE "MANGY MICE" VENDOR BASED STUFF THEN YOU CAN GO LOAD A REAL 64 BIT OPERATING SYSTEM AS YOUR ONLY OS.
 
LINUX IS A NATURAL 64 BIT OPERATING SYSTEM AND THAT SHOULD WORK JUST FINE WITH YOUR AMD ATHLON 64 BIT 2ND GENERATION PROCESSOR.   LINUX HAS ALL THE SUPPORT DRIVERS FOR YOUR E-MACHINE SUBSYSTEMS ALREADY SITTING IN THE KERNEL TREE.


For now, keep it simple .......


USE THE KISS  PRINCIPLE

Keep your life simple and just do this .......

Step #1 is to get the disk I sent you, put it in the CD drive and turn the machine off, wait 5 seconds and turn it back on and let it boot completely off the CD.   This can  take up to 10-15 minutes as it goes through all sorts of various hardware and software discovery routines as it boots up.

If it works as expected, you will see some stuff that will ask you some questions and by your answers it will configure a new GRUB (grand unified bootloader) for you, then it will tell you to take the disk out and reboot the machine which will then run off the brand new GRUB menu system to offer you your choice of OS at boot time.

Keep the CD handy, you will have to use it again as Mickey will break your GRUB bootloader about once a year (on purpose no less as Mickey keeps on thinking Linux is bootleg software and is "unauthorized" to be on "their" machine).


Stop, don't try to fix anything and make your problems worse ...... just take a deep breath and wait for the CD to get there.

rl153 has gotten his disk and is gonna try it tonight ..... everybody cross fingers that his XP installation is still there, just masked and hidden by some fairly dubious Mickey Mischief.

Try #1 failed to recover anything.    This is bad, Mickey is apparently mebbe removing chunks of XP rather than just fouling up the boot loader.   Or else he had a sector death on the hard drive that has taken out a chunk of stuff.

Remember to do a full hard drive scan as you reformat that hard drive if you go for a reload of any OS system.

I suppose next you are going to tell me my 3.1 is on it's way out ...  

(Where did I put that new 3.2 update floppy)


My rotten kid got 18.04 in this machine and I'm cruisin'  

This post is brought to you by the letter "u"

Let's see, because they like it and they are now retired and not rolling in the copious pesos .......

Because on this list we help each other out, whenever we can ......


Eegore, what do you consider a modern OS to be?   What is the changeover point, in your eyes?