i just bought a used hp with 4.3gb ultra dma hard drive, upgraded it from 64mb to 256mb. it has windows 98 os and i was thinking of installing linux! what would you recommend, which linux would be best? i have ubuntu on disk, but am unsure of exactly how to install it, also if i mess up ihave no win 98 disk, how do i do it and get good results? thanks for all input!
2007-03-13 11:25:56 · 7 answers · asked by Anonymous in Computers & Internet ➔ Software
Do stick with an UBUNTU version. You need a minimum 3.0 GB for a full version.
Get UBUNTU (or XUBUNTU if your computer has less than 256MB of RAM).
It's a free, reliable and up to date operating system.
You can explore it from the "LIVE CD".
It's easy to install and use. You can dual boot it with other operating systems.
Once you have it installed, you gain access to thousands of free programs created by the open source community. There is excellent support - see the WIKI starter guide, and the Linux forums.
Always back up your data before making changes to your computer.
2007-03-13 11:49:08 · answer #1 · answered by hitechsleuth 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Ubuntu is great, probably the best that installs to hard disk, the most recent 2 or 3 versions are already Live CDs; a setup of Linux requires very little in terms of disk space compare to Windows, buying a small disk (anything more than 4 gig is more than enough for anything, even Red Hat/Fedora) to replace that 4.3 probably good idea, I say a replacement disk is good idea since you are not experienced and foul up the Win 98 setup is likely if it is there on the system. After that you can do whatever experiment you want on installation.
Puppy (the one I use now, XP erased my MBR after a fresh install) requires far less, if Puppy Linux is indeed the route you chose ultimately, it requires about 512 MB of CF-IDE, I recommand a microdrive instead of a Flash CompactFlash card those adapters should run microdrives without problem.
Both are Live CDs to start with.
2007-03-13 11:49:23 · answer #2 · answered by Andy T 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I have ubuntu and it went on quite well. Usually you can install dual boot, so your win 98 stays intact.
Start off by defragging your win 98 and deleting any junk. Ubuntu should do a minimal install in 2Gb and will resize the win98 partition as needed.
You could also look around for a linux that runs off the CD like mandiva live, or Linspire. If you like it you can install to hard disk later
2007-03-13 11:34:22 · answer #3 · answered by Jeremy E 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Be careful! I've lost data and had to reinstall a lot when I tried linux. Linux doesn't have a lot of hardware drivers. Also, most modern versions of Linux are well....big. Even the smallest Linux (500MB or so) can take up a big chunk of your HD. Other Linux versions are bigger (I've seen some up to 3GB), that would take up your hard drive. If at all possible, get a bigger hard drive, or get an external hard drive (you could get a 60GB one for like $60 US dollar. You can install Linux on that and save your Windows 98.
2007-03-13 11:33:01 · answer #4 · answered by papadego 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Oh yeah I screwed up my first 3 or 4 linux installations. But hey thats all part of installing it. Usually the default installation should suffice. Just put the disks in and go. Dont be afraid to fail because you will get it. You cant install everything on 4 gigs if I am not mistaken but you can get most of it on there. You can leave out packages you do not need.
here are a couple of others
http://fedora.redhat.com
http://www.opensuse.org
RJ
2007-03-13 11:32:02 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Your best bet is to try a "Live" disc and see if it works properly on your computer. Search for "Linux Live" on Google and you should find Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu and Linspire Live CDs.
Once you find a Linux distrubution that works for you, you can tell the Live CD to install it on your Win98 hard drive along side your Win98 and make it into a dual-boot machine, which preserves Win98 entirely.
Or you can always boot from the Live CD and just have it create a user's directory on your hard drive and a permanent Linux swap file on your hard drive, so Windows is never disturbed.
2007-03-13 11:30:39 · answer #6 · answered by MrKnowItAll 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You need to set your BIOS to boot to CD/DVD, and then put the disc in the drive and restart.
I recommend getting a bigger hard drive if you want linux though, as I think 3 years ago(my first install of Red Hat) just basic features took about 2-4GB.
2007-03-13 11:29:58 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋