[skippythepro]

I currently have a Dell XPS 210 with 2g ram and a 160 HD. I currently have vista on it but I'm sick of it crashing daily. What is the first step in converting to Linux and is there a step by step guide anywhere. I'm somewhat windows savvy but nowhere close to where most of you guys are. I'm close to throwing this thing in the street.

[tomiboi]

I recommend Ubuntu. That's what I'm running.

http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntu/index

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Beginners/Guide

[GLComputing]

Have you checked that the applications you want to use are available in Linux?

Might be worth while trying a Linux VMware appliance - http://www.vmware.com/appliances/

They have fully configured Linux systems that you can install and run under your Windows system to be sure you're happy with it

[bkdc]

There are many different flavors (distros) of Linux. I woluld suggest that you go to this link , identify the one that would best suit your needs & give it a try. Most come with a live CD, that is you can boot right from the cd without affecting your current system. Try it out, if you like, install on to your hard drive.

[DellCA]

skippy, What crashes (specific error messages, if you have them) are you getting on the system? Have you run any diagnostics to check for hardware problems? If the errors are due to software then switching should make a difference, however, if there is a hardware problem changing to linux won't help much.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

[bluraycus]

If your thinking of going the linux way you should try out PCLinuxOS 2007 or 2008 Minime. This is what I use and I'm very pleased with it. It's easy to use, runs very stable. Uses the KDE GUI. It come in a live cd to try out and if you like it you can install it to harddrive from desktop. Goto http://www.pclinuxos.com/

Cheers
Bluraycus

[skippythepro]

Originally Posted by DellCA

skippy, What crashes (specific error messages, if you have them) are you getting on the system? Have you run any diagnostics to check for hardware problems? If the errors are due to software then switching should make a difference, however, if there is a hardware problem changing to linux won't help much.

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

It crashes then I get the blue screen saying something about memory not found or words to that effect then it reboots. I've run scan disk, defrag and registry check all with no problems found. Thanks for asking

[DellCA]

Originally Posted by skippythepro

It crashes then I get the blue screen saying something about memory not found or words to that effect then it reboots. I've run scan disk, defrag and registry check all with no problems found. Thanks for asking

If you can write down the actual stop error (the first two or three lines that appear on the blue screen) that would help a great deal. If your computer is automatically rebooting before you have a chance to read the error message you can change that through the System Properties window in the Control Panel: Open System Properties > Advanced System Properites option on the left > Advanced Tab in the new window > Start Up and Recovery section > Settings button > System Failure section > uncheck "Automatically Restart", then click OK to save the change and OK again to close the System Properties window.

If you haven't already done so, you might want to run the Dell diagnostics to see if it finds any hardware failures. You can do this by pressing F12 at the Dell splash screen just after powering up the computer and selected "Onboard Diagnostics". You can also boot from the Dell Resource (aka Drivers & Utilities) CD to run the diags.

Is there anything in particular that seems to cause the error to happen, or does it appear to just happen randomly?

Larry
Dell Customer Advocate

[saikee]

I am holidaying in Hong Kong with a new Vista laptop.

I just downloaded a Linux (Sidux in this case), burnt in into a bootable CD, booted it up, used it to create a couple of Linux partitions (5Gb for Sidux and 1Gb for swap), clicked Sidux's installer and told it to install Linux in the 5Gb partition.

It took 17 minutes.

I then told the Bios to boot the pen drive ahead of the internal hard disk.

I can now run Linux when the pen drive is inserted and Vista when the pen drive is removed. The Sidux boot loader of course allows me to to boot Vista too but I need to add two more lines to its instructions to remap the disk order because when the pen drive is inserted it is the 1st disk and the Vista disk becomes the 2nd disk. The disk order can be swapped by the "map" statements.

Vista costs money to buy and time to install. There is no need to get rid of it. One can run Linux, or any number of them, in a pen drive, CD, DVD or an external hard disk.