Linux on Laptop?

I have an old company Dell PII laptop that has Window 2000 on it. I dont
have the password and want to use it as backup server to run some external
HDs.

What is the cheapest way to get a fresh OS install so I can have full
control of the PC?
Is Linux cheap to buy as OS and will it look and feel close enough to
windows that I could use it efficiently quickly?

thanks!

You can download and run Pettar Nordahl's password cracker for NT, 2000 and XP.
Use it to remove the administrator password, then go at it with the computer as
you like. If the system has a Windows 2000 Certificate of Authentication on it,
you can also reload Windows 2000 (provided you have the install CD), and, once
again, do what you want. One of the Linux distros is usually no more than $20
on eBay for a set of install CDs.

Beware that if the external hard disks are USB, they will run pretty slowly with
the USB 1.1 of the notebook. The external USB disk drive housing must also
provide its own power to the disk drives, because USB 1.1 will not supply power
to any but the simplest low power devices like keyboards, and mice.

.... Ben Myers

On Fri, 28 Jan 2005 21:28:36 -0800, "jtsnow" wrote:

I have an old company Dell PII laptop that has Window 2000 on it. I dont
have the password and want to use it as backup server to run some external
HDs.

What is the cheapest way to get a fresh OS install so I can have full
control of the PC?
Is Linux cheap to buy as OS and will it look and feel close enough to
windows that I could use it efficiently quickly?

thanks!

jtsnow wrote:

I have an old company Dell PII laptop that has Window 2000 on it. I dont
have the password and want to use it as backup server to run some external
HDs.

What is the cheapest way to get a fresh OS install so I can have full
control of the PC?
Is Linux cheap to buy as OS and will it look and feel close enough to
windows that I could use it efficiently quickly?

thanks!
Linux is free so yes its cheap to buy. I've been running Slackware on my
Latitude for about a year after being extremely disappointed with XP, but
slackware isn't the easiest to install, something like suse or mandrake are
easier to install. KDE looks a lot like Windows so its easy to start using
it.

jtsnow wrote:
I have an old company Dell PII laptop that has Window 2000 on it. I dont
have the password and want to use it as backup server to run some external
HDs.

What is the cheapest way to get a fresh OS install so I can have full
control of the PC?
Is Linux cheap to buy as OS and will it look and feel close enough to
windows that I could use it efficiently quickly?

thanks!


In terms of Linux, the switch from a Microsoft based operating system to
linux involves a very significant learning curve. While the desktop
managers like KDE and Gnome make it easy to navigate around, actually
getting software, hardware and updates to work takes a great deal of
time, learning and most of all patience.

With that being said, I am a systems administrator for a living and use
both Windows OS's and Red Hat Linux/Fedora Core releases. I have an
MSCE in Microsoft and an RHCE for RedHat. So, I do speak with
experience. I spend more time each day with Linux than I typically do
Windows, so I clearly having nothing against encouraging people to use
Linux. I just want to set the proper expectation so they don't give up
on it too quickly.