Installing Ubuntu on a REALLY old computer

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to Ubuntu 5.10. It
was an unbelievable success! It surprised even me how smoothly it went
-- didn't need to go into the command-line even once. Linux has
arrived, it seems. My brother is a highly typical computer user,
doesn't know how it works, just wants to use it for: email, chat, IM,
P2P, videos, MP3's, etc. What surprised me too was that after I
finished installing Ubuntu 5.10 for him, he himself went to the
Internet and upgraded it to Ubuntu 6.06 without my assistance! You know
you've got fool-proof system when it's that easy. So he's got his
Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows. He's found himself a
bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with Gaim. I've even found the
solutions to allow him to play Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio
files. He's happy. :-)

So, later I told this story to some of my cousins and now they're
interested in putting Ubuntu onto a secondary computer of theirs. Now
my brother's computer was easy because it's a relatively modern PC (AMD
Duron 1.1Ghz), but the cousin's PC is a really old museum piece of a
computer, an old HP Pavillion with an original Pentium at 100Mhz. I
tried to boot from CD, but I'm not sure if this thing can even boot
from CD. Looking up the HP site seems to indicate that it can boot from
CD, but maybe that's only for its own original equipment CD drive --
that's long since died and it's been replaced with an aftermarket CD
burner. I can't even get into the BIOS setup of this HP PC. Anyways,
long story short, I'm thinking of taking the hard drive out of the HP
and temporarily plugging it into a more modern computer to install the
Ubuntu from CD there. Then when it's done installing the packages and
it asks you to reboot the machine, I'm thinking of then moving the hard
disk back to the old HP, and let it finish its setup there. I'm
assuming that there's nothing system-specific that's being done in the
first part of the install, and all of the system-specific stuff is done
in the second part of the install? Does this have any chance of
working?

Yousuf Khan

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 08:54:22 -0700, bbbl67 wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to Ubuntu 5.10. It
was an unbelievable success! It surprised even me how smoothly it went
-- didn't need to go into the command-line even once. Linux has
arrived, it seems. My brother is a highly typical computer user,
doesn't know how it works, just wants to use it for: email, chat, IM,
P2P, videos, MP3's, etc. What surprised me too was that after I
finished installing Ubuntu 5.10 for him, he himself went to the
Internet and upgraded it to Ubuntu 6.06 without my assistance! You know
you've got fool-proof system when it's that easy. So he's got his
Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows. He's found himself a
bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with Gaim. I've even found the
solutions to allow him to play Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio
files. He's happy. :-)

So, later I told this story to some of my cousins and now they're
interested in putting Ubuntu onto a secondary computer of theirs. Now
my brother's computer was easy because it's a relatively modern PC (AMD
Duron 1.1Ghz), but the cousin's PC is a really old museum piece of a
computer, an old HP Pavillion with an original Pentium at 100Mhz. I
tried to boot from CD, but I'm not sure if this thing can even boot
from CD. Looking up the HP site seems to indicate that it can boot from
CD, but maybe that's only for its own original equipment CD drive --
that's long since died and it's been replaced with an aftermarket CD
burner. I can't even get into the BIOS setup of this HP PC. Anyways,
long story short, I'm thinking of taking the hard drive out of the HP
and temporarily plugging it into a more modern computer to install the
Ubuntu from CD there. Then when it's done installing the packages and
it asks you to reboot the machine, I'm thinking of then moving the hard
disk back to the old HP, and let it finish its setup there. I'm
assuming that there's nothing system-specific that's being done in the
first part of the install, and all of the system-specific stuff is done
in the second part of the install? Does this have any chance of
working?

Yousuf Khan

IMHO - you should not even try to install Ubuntu on a computer that old.
If it succeeded, you would not be happy with the performance. Much better
to try Elive, Vector, Damn Small, or something of that ilk.

bbbl67 wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to
Ubuntu 5.10. It was an unbelievable success! It surprised
even me how smoothly it went -- didn't need to go into the
command-line even once. Linux has arrived, it seems.

Nope, now try accessing NTFS formatted partitions on that.

Or even just FAT32 partitions.

My brother is a highly typical computer user, doesn't know
how it works, just wants to use it for: email, chat, IM, P2P,
videos, MP3's, etc. What surprised me too was that after I
finished installing Ubuntu 5.10 for him, he himself went to the
Internet and upgraded it to Ubuntu 6.06 without my assistance!
You know you've got fool-proof system when it's that easy.

See above.

So he's got his Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows.
He's found himself a bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with
Gaim. I've even found the solutions to allow him to play
Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio files. He's happy. :-)

Until he trys to access XP partitions.

So, later I told this story to some of my cousins and now they're
interested in putting Ubuntu onto a secondary computer of theirs.
Now my brother's computer was easy because it's a relatively
modern PC (AMD Duron 1.1Ghz), but the cousin's PC is a really
old museum piece of a computer, an old HP Pavillion with an
original Pentium at 100Mhz. I tried to boot from CD, but I'm not
sure if this thing can even boot from CD. Looking up the HP site
seems to indicate that it can boot from CD, but maybe that's only
for its own original equipment CD drive -- that's long since died
and it's been replaced with an aftermarket CD burner.

Unlikely to be any different on booting.

I can't even get into the BIOS setup of this HP PC. Anyways,
long story short, I'm thinking of taking the hard drive out of the
HP and temporarily plugging it into a more modern computer
to install the Ubuntu from CD there. Then when it's done installing
the packages and it asks you to reboot the machine, I'm thinking
of then moving the hard disk back to the old HP, and let
it finish its setup there. I'm assuming that there's nothing
system-specific that's being done in the first part of the install,
and all of the system-specific stuff is done in the second part
of the install? Does this have any chance of working?

Should work, you can usually move a hard drive
between systems and have it boot fine with linux.

You could also try http://btmgr.sourceforge.net/about.html
to boot the CD

You should be able to see how to get into the bios on the
Pav on the HP site if you have a proper model number.

"Rod Speed" writes:

bbbl67 wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to
Ubuntu 5.10. It was an unbelievable success! It surprised
even me how smoothly it went -- didn't need to go into the
command-line even once. Linux has arrived, it seems.

Nope, now try accessing NTFS formatted partitions on that.

Or even just FAT32 partitions.

Yes, and you will find that it makes a terrible cup of espresso as well.



So he's got his Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows.
He's found himself a bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with
Gaim. I've even found the solutions to allow him to play
Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio files. He's happy. :-)

Until he trys to access XP partitions.

And he wants to do that why?

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 14:36:52 -0600, ray wrote:

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 08:54:22 -0700, bbbl67 wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to Ubuntu 5.10. It
was an unbelievable success! It surprised even me how smoothly it went
-- didn't need to go into the command-line even once. Linux has
arrived, it seems. My brother is a highly typical computer user,
doesn't know how it works, just wants to use it for: email, chat, IM,
P2P, videos, MP3's, etc. What surprised me too was that after I
finished installing Ubuntu 5.10 for him, he himself went to the
Internet and upgraded it to Ubuntu 6.06 without my assistance! You know
you've got fool-proof system when it's that easy. So he's got his
Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows. He's found himself a
bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with Gaim. I've even found the
solutions to allow him to play Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio
files. He's happy. :-)

So, later I told this story to some of my cousins and now they're
interested in putting Ubuntu onto a secondary computer of theirs. Now
my brother's computer was easy because it's a relatively modern PC (AMD
Duron 1.1Ghz), but the cousin's PC is a really old museum piece of a
computer, an old HP Pavillion with an original Pentium at 100Mhz. I
tried to boot from CD, but I'm not sure if this thing can even boot
from CD. Looking up the HP site seems to indicate that it can boot from
CD, but maybe that's only for its own original equipment CD drive --
that's long since died and it's been replaced with an aftermarket CD
burner. I can't even get into the BIOS setup of this HP PC. Anyways,
long story short, I'm thinking of taking the hard drive out of the HP
and temporarily plugging it into a more modern computer to install the
Ubuntu from CD there. Then when it's done installing the packages and
it asks you to reboot the machine, I'm thinking of then moving the hard
disk back to the old HP, and let it finish its setup there. I'm
assuming that there's nothing system-specific that's being done in the
first part of the install, and all of the system-specific stuff is done
in the second part of the install? Does this have any chance of
working?

Yousuf Khan

IMHO - you should not even try to install Ubuntu on a computer that old.
If it succeeded, you would not be happy with the performance. Much better
to try Elive, Vector, Damn Small, or something of that ilk.

Win98. And while you are tinkering with it, look through your pile of
junk for any Pentium MMX. Don't try K6 or Cyrix - it will not
withstand such an abuse. I "upgraded" a few boxes that way. The
last one was Gateway P75. I plugged in a PMMX200, played a bit with
jumpers, and got it work at 166 - a hell of upgrade from 75. The BIOS
reported it as P66, but Sandra recognized it as 166MMX. Seems it
could survive 3.2Vcore socket5. But don't try any modern OS on that -
Win98 or (cough) NT4 is tops it can "run" (rather crawl), even with
sufficient RAM (at least 64MB).

NNN

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 08:54:22 -0700, bbbl67 wrote:

Does this have any chance of
working?

Yes, but it won't be pretty, fun, or very usable. Even with a fast, lean
window manager like blackbox that machine will be sluggish doing what
today passes for the most basic of tasks.

--
JDS |
| http://www.newtnotes.com
DJMBS | http://newtnotes.com/doctor-jeff-master-brainsurgeon/

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 22:48:23 +0000, wrote:

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 14:36:52 -0600, ray wrote:

On Sat, 08 Jul 2006 08:54:22 -0700, bbbl67 wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to Ubuntu 5.10. It
was an unbelievable success! It surprised even me how smoothly it went
-- didn't need to go into the command-line even once. Linux has
arrived, it seems. My brother is a highly typical computer user,
doesn't know how it works, just wants to use it for: email, chat, IM,
P2P, videos, MP3's, etc. What surprised me too was that after I
finished installing Ubuntu 5.10 for him, he himself went to the
Internet and upgraded it to Ubuntu 6.06 without my assistance! You know
you've got fool-proof system when it's that easy. So he's got his
Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows. He's found himself a
bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with Gaim. I've even found the
solutions to allow him to play Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio
files. He's happy. :-)

So, later I told this story to some of my cousins and now they're
interested in putting Ubuntu onto a secondary computer of theirs. Now
my brother's computer was easy because it's a relatively modern PC (AMD
Duron 1.1Ghz), but the cousin's PC is a really old museum piece of a
computer, an old HP Pavillion with an original Pentium at 100Mhz. I
tried to boot from CD, but I'm not sure if this thing can even boot
from CD. Looking up the HP site seems to indicate that it can boot from
CD, but maybe that's only for its own original equipment CD drive --
that's long since died and it's been replaced with an aftermarket CD
burner. I can't even get into the BIOS setup of this HP PC. Anyways,
long story short, I'm thinking of taking the hard drive out of the HP
and temporarily plugging it into a more modern computer to install the
Ubuntu from CD there. Then when it's done installing the packages and
it asks you to reboot the machine, I'm thinking of then moving the hard
disk back to the old HP, and let it finish its setup there. I'm
assuming that there's nothing system-specific that's being done in the
first part of the install, and all of the system-specific stuff is done
in the second part of the install? Does this have any chance of
working?

Yousuf Khan

IMHO - you should not even try to install Ubuntu on a computer that old.
If it succeeded, you would not be happy with the performance. Much better
to try Elive, Vector, Damn Small, or something of that ilk.

Win98. And while you are tinkering with it, look through your pile of
junk for any Pentium MMX. Don't try K6 or Cyrix - it will not
withstand such an abuse. I "upgraded" a few boxes that way. The
last one was Gateway P75. I plugged in a PMMX200, played a bit with
jumpers, and got it work at 166 - a hell of upgrade from 75. The BIOS
reported it as P66, but Sandra recognized it as 166MMX. Seems it
could survive 3.2Vcore socket5. But don't try any modern OS on that -
Win98 or (cough) NT4 is tops it can "run" (rather crawl), even with
sufficient RAM (at least 64MB).

NNN

I have installed Elive Linux on several P166 with 64mb ram - runs well,
and performance is quite acceptable.

Rod Speed wrote:

bbbl67 wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to
Ubuntu 5.10...Linux has arrived, it seems.

Nope, now try accessing NTFS formatted partitions on that.

Or even just FAT32 partitions.

I have two external (USB2.0) 112GB hard drives where I keep everything that
isn't part of the UBUNTU 5.1 system. That's on an internal 35G drive. Both
the USB drives are set up with FAT32 partitions. They work fine.

In 1996 I put Slackware 2.something Linux on a 40MB (yes, MB) hard drive.
Don't remember for sure, but I think the clock speed on that computer was
around 50 MHz. Didn't have a clue about drive partitioning, so I kept
everything in one "big" partition. And everything worked fine. (No bearing
on the original poster's question, but I thought it might be of interest to
somebody...)

On 8 Jul 2006 08:54:22 -0700, "bbbl67" wrote:

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to Ubuntu 5.10. It
was an unbelievable success! It surprised even me how smoothly it went
-- didn't need to go into the command-line even once. Linux has
arrived, it seems. My brother is a highly typical computer user,
doesn't know how it works, just wants to use it for: email, chat, IM,
P2P, videos, MP3's, etc. What surprised me too was that after I
finished installing Ubuntu 5.10 for him, he himself went to the
Internet and upgraded it to Ubuntu 6.06 without my assistance! You know
you've got fool-proof system when it's that easy. So he's got his
Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows. He's found himself a
bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with Gaim. I've even found the
solutions to allow him to play Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio
files. He's happy. :-)

I am embarrassed and stunned speechless by your brother wrt the same
attempt. I had to jump through hoops just to get a newer version of
Firefox to work on my Ubuntu. A new project got in the way so I still
haven't got around to fixing sound (gone after attempting to make MP3
work), much less video.


--
A Lost Angel, fallen from heaven
Lost in dreams, Lost in aspirations,
Lost to the world, Lost to myself

Unruh wrote
Rod Speed writes
bbbl67 wrote

I just upgraded my brother's computer from Win XP to
Ubuntu 5.10. It was an unbelievable success! It surprised
even me how smoothly it went -- didn't need to go into the
command-line even once. Linux has arrived, it seems.

Nope, now try accessing NTFS formatted partitions on that.

Or even just FAT32 partitions.

Yes, and you will find that it makes a terrible cup of espresso as well.

Have fun explaining how come knoppix handles the same drive fine.

So he's got his Firefox and Thunderbird just like in Windows.
He's found himself a bittorrent client that he likes, IM's with
Gaim. I've even found the solutions to allow him to play
Windows *.WMV and *.WMA video and audio files. He's happy. :-)

Until he trys to access XP partitions.

And he wants to do that why?

Irrelevant to whether it really has arrived. It hasnt even now.