Hi, i have a old laptop specs are 1.5gb ram (1 gb stick and 512mb stick) intel celeron m 410 processor and it is running windows xp home premium right now, i want to upgrade it to a supported os, but i don't know if the hardware can support it. I'm deciding between windows 7 starter edition or lubuntu os. Any advice?
Hi Win&User11726,
How are you going to activate Win7 Starter? Your Win XP product key will not work, nor will upgrade.
I'm not that familiar with Lubuntu, it should work, it's open-source, meaning you don't have/need a product key.
I have Linux Lite 2.0 Beta (most similar Linux distro to Win 7) on my old Compaq cq56-219wm, Celeron processor, and it runs sweet. Less than 1GB (750 M I believe).
I'd create a full system image of XP to external drive; just in case you want to revert to it.
Lubuntu or Xubuntu are light versions of Ubuntu.
I have and like Lubuntu as it looks like windows.
lubuntu lightweight, fast, easier
Use the 32 bits version http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/lubuntu/re...sktop-i386.iso
I have Elementary OS (Linux, based on Ubuntu) on an old computer. It runs surprisingly well. The desktop interface is just like what you would find on a MAC.
Yes, Elementary OS is a small footprint OS, as are the distros Megahertz07 indicated. Linux Lite is very similar GUI to Win7 and versions prior to 3.X are less than 1GB. I've tried to install and run XP-Like, another small foot-print distro, couldn't boot it, and didn't bother to troubleshoot! I'm sure there are a few others, haven't researched them!
Most all Linux distros are variants of Ubuntu or Debian, or a combo thereof. Mathew Moore has a couple excellent tutorial videos on dual boot setups, where he expounds on the pitfalls of grub bootloader replacing Win bootloader and installing grub on Linux partition
How do you have 7 starter? That was only made available for system builders and wasn't available for retail purchase. Do you have a key from another computer? If so you won't be able to use it on any other computer because that would go against the terms of service and it also won't activate. To answer your question 1.5 gb of ram is really too low. You'd only be able to run one program at a time and even then you'll notice a performance decrease. Also are there drivers for Vista or 7? If not then you won't be able to get the graphics to work correctly and other devices might not work right. For the age I'm guessing that there probably aren't any drivers but without knowing the model I couldn't tell you for sure. I'll leave the linux discussion for the other members.
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