How to upgrade my PC experience?

Support & Help Requests
#1

Hello! :smiley:

I have an old PC that works with Windows XP for near to 10 years.

In recently years that Microsoft stops support for Windows XP my PC is very unsecure without any Firewall, Antivirus due to make slow down the computer for daily usages. Even wthout these softwares my lovely Firefox start a little slowly! :neutral_face:

I read many posts about upgrade old PCs to Linux desktop.
I try many times with Live CD but I one main issue, my graphic card that is very old and can’t install drive for that: RADEON 9250. :scream:

Furthermore, I have a big concern that Linux distrus, like Ubuntu, and specially, Ubuntu MATE works smoothly on my old PC for daily usages such as busy web browsing and VLC and editing office files (Word files and more with Exel files)? :worried:

My desktop configuration:
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 1500+, 1.34 GHz
RAM: 1.5 GB (2 GB don’t works with Windows XP but detected with Live CD so I can have 2GB in Linux)
Motherboard: KT400A-8235 (Socket A)
Graphics: 128MB ATI RADEON 9250
HDD: 80 GB

Can you help me to easily upgrade my PC experience?

Best regards
Leagoo

#2

I would probably recommend Lubuntu for that spec of machine. Also, it’s worth bearing in mind that internet streaming video is always going to be a bit slow and choppy due to the specification of the machine irrespective of whatever distro you install. Nevertheless, Lubuntu is the lightest of them, yet is still a fully fledged distro in its own right. It doesn’t come shipped with Libre-Office. But that can be installed in just a few minutes after initial install of the distro.

You can get it here:

A review of it is here:

And, finally, here is a video showing how to make Lubuntu look and feel like XP, if that is what you are used to and prefer:

#3

See this beginners guide:

#4

Looks like your video falls under old, but still supported.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

I did not research this any further, you may want to.

http://www.googlubuntu.com/results/?cx=006238239194895611142:u-ocqbntw_o&q=RADEON+9250&sa=Search&cof=FORID:9

#5

Welcome @leagoo! My thoughts on your upgrade:

Distro Choice

Ubuntu MATE has very low system requirements too (like Lubuntu), but as you’ve seen, it can run smoothly on older hardware too. I’d go with Ubuntu MATE since it has the features you’d need for a daily driver pre-installed and a Welcome program to introduce you from the Windows world.

Live sessions are great, but rely on memory to run efficiently. You’ll likely find performance to be better once your desired distro is installed to the hard disk.

Graphics Driver

It’s quite complex trying to install a graphics driver during the live session, since it requires a reboot to work, so the driver might be something better tested once you’ve installed.

From my experience with AMD drivers, the open source driver is one I’d go with first, unless there are performance issues in which try AMD’s proprietary driver.

Furthermore, I have a big concern that Linux distrus, like Ubuntu, and specially, Ubuntu MATE works smoothly on my old PC for daily usages such as busy web browsing and VLC and editing office files (Word files and more with Exel files)? :worried:

Light desktops like MATE and LXDE are better suited for your kind of setup. Regular Ubuntu (Unity) and Kubuntu (KDE) for instance are too resource demanding that will make your experience sluggish.

We have LibreOffice, but if you have a copy of Microsoft Office and prefer, you can install that using Wine.

Backups

Once you’re committed to upgrading, please do ensure your data is backed up to another storage device / medium in case something goes wrong. You could use a tool like Clonezilla if you’d like an exact clone saved of your existing system, just in case.

#6

Hello!

My parents has a very old PC too. AMD 2500XP with 1GB RAM.
I installed Ubuntu Mate 14.04.2 on it, but the system doesn’t have the speed of Windows XP… :frowning: I am a little disappointed. Can you recommend me something how could I speed up that machine? Did I install the right release? I thought a newer one (16.04) would be more laggy.
Furthermore I can’t start firefox. After upgrade it crasches all the time. What should I do with that?
Thank you for your Help!

István

#7

If it did work before the upgrade to FF 53 then your CPU might just be too old.
From the release notes:

Ended Firefox Linux support for processors older than Pentium 4 and AMD Opteron

You can try installing Firefox 52 ESR, that should give you support until some time next year.

#8

I am surprised to hear that UM 14.04 is slower than XP. I have installed it as a replacement on a number of notepads and laptops and have found it to run fine.

However, there is an extremely lightweight alternative to UM and that is Lubuntu, which uses LXDE as its desktop. Additionally, Lubuntu can be themed to look and feel quite similar to UM or, indeed, there is even a theme to make it look extremely similar to Windows XP.

I’ve just made this video to show you how much Lubuntu can be made to look like XP. See below:

And here is it themed to look like UM