I just wanted to know, who here thinks that it would really be to my advantage to install Ubuntu and delete Windows XP? As most of you know, my HD is full and I cannot take any to install Ubuntu (GOD sometimes I hate Microsoft) and I do not want to lose all my precious software on my PC. Any ideas? (this means you Kllrnohj )

EDIT: ADMINS please delete the other one.

EDIT 2:And my PC is a laptop.

Well, my suggestion is that you buy another hard drive (a decent $50 one with like 80GB), and install Ubuntu on that... then configure GRUB or LILO to let you dual boot.

If you can't do that, then Ubuntu is better than XP... or you could get a distro of a small linux, such as Knoppix or Puppy...

DSL will install on your harddrive in around 300mb. You don't really get a good experience with small distros like this and puppy, though. If you can squeeze DSL onto your harddrive, go for it. If you actually want to dump windows, definitely go with ubuntu. With openoffice and firefox, the only thing you really can't do is play games. (Granted, you can get a lot going with wine and cedega, but native windows is still far superior for gaming)

yeah. At first though, I think you should play with Live CDs (Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.) first, then think of the install. Linux is not for the faint of heart really, and may not work like you want it to.

Btw, can we get hardware specs (very specific, especially graphics and wireless cards), about your laptop?

I will get those for you rivereye, please be patient.

Wireless Card:
Dell Wireless WLAN 1350 Adapter Rev 4.4
(Broadcom) BCM4306/BCM2050

Chipset:
Intel Celeron 2.6Ghz
512 MB RAM

Sound Card:
SigmaTel Audio

Graphics:
Intel 82852/82855 GM/GME Graphics Controller

You should run something like Windows 98 on that CPU.

I actually have a Windows 98 CD but I do not have the floppy needed for it to work.

You only need the floppy for PCs that can't boot from a CD - and I hope to god that laptop can boot to a CD

Anywho, Linux is far superior to Windows in everything but high-end gaming (and thats not a gaming laptop, so no biggie there). Linux does have its share of games (more than a Mac, at least ), and some are fun, if not graphically amazing (3d scorch, that tron game, 3d tux racer), but there are graphically good games too (ut2004, doom3, america's army, quake 4, etc..)

But whether or not YOU should take the leap is a different story. Ubuntu would be the only thing I would suggest for you, but even that might be over your head...

Nothing is really 'harder' in linux, just... different. It kind of takes a while to get used to. I highly recommend using a live cd for a while before actually switching. I had about of month of practice on a second computer before I fully made the switch. It was still quite overwhelming at first, though.

(But, then again, my computer doesn't have an OS on it at the moment. Just the first half of a winXP install)

that's not necessarily true... It's just... Linux is more hands on. Linux is alot more customizable... but on the other hand, Linux is alot easier to break. And once you break linux, you have to be comfortable with a command line to fix it...

See, for example, I have an Nvidia Gefoce 5500 in my linux box. It's a decent chip... but it HATES the Nvidia proprietary driver... in fact, if I even try to use it, GDM refuses to start. If I didn't know about dpkg-reconfigure, I woulda been SOL, and reinstalling Ubuntu...

See, the only thing I really had trouble with was getting my dial-up going. I needed to download a program for the internet to dial. I thought I was SOL until I found out I could download the .deb on a different computer.

Then getting my graphics card driver was as simple as checking a box and clicking 'apply.'

EDIT: Oh, one thing, it is harder to play mp3's in Ubuntu. It requires downloading a program (click its link online, then click ok) and then checking a box and hitting 'apply.' I know, faaaaaar too complicated.

Out of all those different live disks which one would you recommend the most?

Everyone thus far has mainly be recommending Ubuntu - stick with that.

Okay. 6-10 weeks and my discs will be here.

Are you on dial-up or something? I would just download the CD if you aren't... only takes like 30 minutes or so (3mbit)

I'm on dial-up but I still downloaded it. I think 40-50 hours. Shipit only gives 6.06, doesn't it? You should really get 6.10. I used a torrent so I could disconnect and resume my download. Even if you don't want to wait that long, just have a friend with broadband download it for you.

7.something is due out soon, too, I heard

Yup i've got dial up. I will try to download it at school tommorow but their internet is slow as well(took me half an hour to download open office portable). If i cant get the entire thing done then i wil just wait for the disk. And the newest version being released is 7.04 and it is being released tommorow.

Get utorrent and download some of it to a flashdrive every opportunity you get. It shouldn't take too long.

7.4... you can tell by the date. Because ubuntu is weird, the versions go by dates... year.month instead of an actual version number.