Bertus and Joey, thanks for your response.

I have a newly-acquired (none of my old files transfered to it yet) Dell Optiplex 745, 2.13G CPU 3G ram, 149G drive, with a clean install of XP.

Is this suitable for splitting the drive for a dual boot?

Which distro on this hardware?

 

I like the Unix version running on my machine. It's called Mac OS X.
In theory I could boot into Windows or something else but, knock on wood, I have so far not had that urge.

 

I have a newly-acquired (none of my old files transfered to it yet) Dell Optiplex 745...

That's got the integrated Intel Graphics with shared memory. I would try a live CD/USB Ubuntu 14.04 to see how well the graphics works. It may be slow.

If so, try Lubuntu.

Either can be configured as dual boot, and both use the same software repositories, so anything that works on one will pretty much work on the other.

PS -> Remember that the live CD/USB is always going to be slow compared to an actual hard drive install. Once you confirm your hardware works, I'd do a full Ubuntu dual-boot install and try it. If the graphics are too slow, you can always install the Lubuntu over the Ubuntu, preserving the Win XP dual boot.

Also, technically, you can install *both* Ubuntu and Lubuntu and choose which desktop you want when you log in. For a novice, though, this only goes so far as the default applications for each version are different, and will cause you considerable confusion.

 

Hello,

How is the harddisk partitioned at the moment?
For the linux operating system you will need about 15 to 20 Gb.
You will need a swap partition (I usualy take 2 Gb).
And a "home" partition, where all your data will be stored.

Bertus

 

You will need a swap partition (I usualy take 2 Gb).
And a "home" partition, where all your data will be stored.

The L/Ubuntu installer will take care of this for him. And, one doesn't really *need* a home partition. /home can be stored on the root partition.

 

Hello,

I always make a home partition, so I can install a newer version of the linux distribution without changing the home partition.
openSUSE will see the home-partition and mount it that way.

Bertus

 

I always make a home partition, so I can install a newer version of the linux distribution without changing the home partition.
openSUSE will see the home-partition and mount it that way.

And there are other benefits as well.

But...

Lately so much changes from one major release to the next that old config settings (in the /home subdirs) tend to bork the updates. Also, I tend to use only LTS releases (with Ubuntu, that's every two years), so I just 'cp -a' the home files that are important to me -- and use all the new config defaults.

 

using ubuntu servers myself. machine i'm typing on now, free version zorin os8. besides the first login issues (documented) all is fine. wine also included and firefox doesn't come as a default program, installs chrome instead.