Linux OS for old XP desktop?

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king of rock

king of rock

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Aug 8, 2011
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Howdie! I have an old computer running WinXP SP3. I would like to salvage it simply for using Win Office products, maybe copy a CD or two (CD's! remember them?!) Not sure how else I would be using it, but it would be relatively minimal stuff I imagine.

I have Intel Pentium 4 2.53GHz (Northwood B?), 1 GB ram, and it's a Dell.

I just want to wipe the whole damn thing (after dumping files, etc).

1) Is there a reason I should opt for Mint 18 vs Ubuntu (or Xubuntu/Lubuntu) ?

2) There is absolutely no reason to reinstall XP?

3) Is MS Office the best choice? I already use that throughout the family devices in the house.

4) Anything else, advice for wiping the C drive before installation I should know?

Solutions and/or discussions, whatever...I think a lot of people may have this same interest

Thanks so much for your kind help
 
Solution
skittle
I have used libreoffice extensively in my undergrad and graduate studies.
The simple solution is to export as pdf. Everyone in an academic setting will accept pdf, and infact it is THE standard at many schools. There is no argument for only accepting homework in Microsoft proprietary format. Also note thats msoffice can open libreoffice documents...

Also its is important to not libreoffice is not 'freeware' it is free open source software and adopted by many countries around the world as the official document format. libreoffice also does convert very well between msoffice, sometimes the formatting (margins etc) is a little off but I would argue formatting is of especially little importance.
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Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

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In the Linux setup you can choose to automatically reformat the drive I believe. Your only reason to want XP is if you wanted to run apps that were supported on XP but not on anything else you own, which shouldn't be much if anything.

For the record, the only Linux version I have used was Linux Mint XFCE 17.3 32 bit on
Intel Pentium 4 3 GHz
Ati Radeon 5200
2 x 512 MB DDR-466
7200 RPM 80 GB HDD

For reference.

I personally find Linux Mint a bit like Windows in terms of where everything is. I have not used Ubuntu but I think both are good, you might want to look on forums for both and get the views of the users.
 
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Scottray

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Jul 14, 2016
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If you want to run MS Office on a Linux distro, then you need to install Wine. Be sure that the distro you choose supports Wine and also the version of MS Office that you have. I think, but not sure, that Wine only supports MS Office up to Office 2010.
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Scottray: Good call on "Wine" it does appear it works on office 2013, but maybe not uninstall...good to know though (for anyone reading this down the road, wine = https://www.winehq.org/)

Justice: Your computer looks close to my specs. Did you have an issues with Mint performance wise? Do you do anything taxing OS wise with it?

Thanks
 
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king of rock

king of rock

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Skitt: it looks like libreoffice can convert to and from MS Office, which is good. However, I worry since 3 people (in theory) might use this desktop to do schoolwork and need to submit it via a university blackboard network, and it might not convert EXACTLY as it should. Don't wanna get docked points for using freeware. On the other hand, it is probable NO ONE will be submitting schoolwork on this desktop.

If you (or anyone) has experience converting back and forth btw MS Office/libreoffice and vouches for lossless (nice), please chime in!

Thanks!
 
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skittle

skittle

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Dec 27, 2006
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I have used libreoffice extensively in my undergrad and graduate studies.
The simple solution is to export as pdf. Everyone in an academic setting will accept pdf, and infact it is THE standard at many schools. There is no argument for only accepting homework in Microsoft proprietary format. Also note thats msoffice can open libreoffice documents...

Also its is important to not libreoffice is not 'freeware' it is free open source software and adopted by many countries around the world as the official document format. libreoffice also does convert very well between msoffice, sometimes the formatting (margins etc) is a little off but I would argue formatting is of especially little importance.
 
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Solution
Justiceinacan

Justiceinacan

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Well, I don't know if this was the HDD it was set up on or not but it did take a while to load (30 sec at least) but so did Windows XP so I think it's the HDD or slow RAM.

As for what I used it for, I basically resurrected it to buy my new PC and the projects I was making for some friends, Skype, Minecraft, that was about it though. It ran minecraft surprisingly smooth compared to how it ran on Windows XP, though. Probably not anything you would find useful...

Again, I'd get the XFCE version for best results. It was made to be lighter on your hardware (Linux is already that way, but XFCE even more I suppose) and will probably the fastest. I used the default document editor and some image editors and they opened quickly and responded pretty fast for an old PC, as a testing thing.
 
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