What are the minimum system requirements for Ubuntu 10.10?

[Guest]

Hi everyone,
I'm plannin to download a linux for an old computer from 2001. I'm on an expensive 3G wireless connection and I want to make sure it's gonna work on this system before I actually download it. Last time I tried, it was kubuntu, and it didn't work. It installed perfectly ok and I could dual boot with XP, but when I booted to kubuntu, it didn't take me to a GUI, it would just get me into the UNIX # prompt, and if I typed startx there, it would show a bunch or colored boxes on the screen and take me back to the # prompt again, unfortunately.
I am talking about this marginal computer, here are the specs:-

->Intel pentium 4 1.5GHz overclocked to 1.89GHz (stress-tested with prime95 for a day, didn't crash on windows XP)
->760 MB DDR2 RAM
->320 GB segate PATA HDD
->8 MB shared on-board graphics
->ForteMedia PCI sound card

What do you experts say? I'm running pretty slim on the graphics side, maybe that's the reason KDE couldn't load on kubuntu eh?
Would Ubuntu 10.10 work on this mentioned system? I can't add a graphics card to this, it doesn't have an AGP slot )-:

Thanks

 

[wombat_tg]

Chancy at best. Here are the min requirements for 10:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/SystemRequirements

Given your connection situation you should head straight for a light-weight distro intended to run on old, slow, limited hardware like yours instead of trying to coax your machine to maybe run more mainstream offerings.

Here are some suggestions- there are plenty more out there:

Xubunutu
Bodhi
Peppermint
Puppy

 

[kitkat12012]

+1 on the lightweight distro, it'll run more smoothly than a full blown ubuntu


besides the ones wombat_tg listed, if you're an ubuntu fan, you can also look at lubuntu and crunchbang. they're both ubuntu based

 

[Ijack]

The weight of the distro doesn't explain the problems that you had with the X Server last time. I would try a few live distros first to see if graphics work with them before finalizing on a distro to install. Check out the X logs if it still fails to start.

You say that you can't install a graphics card becasue you don't have an AGP slot. Don't you have a free PCI one? As a matter of interest, what graphics controller does your board have on it? The X server should work with most anything nowadays.

 

[Guest]

The weight of the distro doesn't explain the problems that you had with the X Server last time. I would try a few live distros first to see if graphics work with them before finalizing on a distro to install. Check out the X logs if it still fails to start.

You say that you can't install a graphics card becasue you don't have an AGP slot. Don't you have a free PCI one? As a matter of interest, what graphics controller does your board have on it? The X server should work with most anything nowadays.

Thanks everyone for your replies everyone
I have free PCI slots, can i install a graphics card in a PCI slot?
Graphics on my system (checked using the dxdiag command in windows xp):
DAC Type : Internal
Memory : 64 MB
current display mode: 1152 x 864 (32 bit) (85 Hz)
Hardware : Intel 82845G Graphics controller
BIOS: Intel video bios.
DirectDraw acceleration: Enabled (Full).
Direct3D acceleration: Enabled (Full).
AGP texture acceleration : Not Available.
The last time i tried to install kubuntu, x wont start. typing startx or sudo startx would draw a bunch of colored boxes and then return to the console with an error message saying something like '
failed to switch to CPU domain 3, IO error, failed to submit batchbuffer, IO error, giving up'
I didn't install it though, i was trying the 'try kubuntu without installing' option, and i have no idea how to check the log files from the console, i never learned UNIX

 

[Ijack]

Yes, you can buy PCI graphics cards. Here is a selection. NVidia cards and Linux go together well so if you buy a new card I would go for one of theirs; and they're not exactly pricey.

The X server logs are to be found in "/var/log". Look for one called "Xorg.0.log" or something similar. Open them up in a text editor ("nano" for example) and search for the word "error" to see if you can find any messages. If they don't make sense reproduce them here (not the whole log, just an error message or two) and we can have a look. Note - it is important to give the exact error message rather than trying to summarize it.

Edit: Your graphics controller should work with Ubuntu, although a number of people have reported problems with it. It might be worth seeing if these can be solved before splashing out on a new card