Hi. I want to install Linux in my old laptop which i dont use. but store my files in it. I want to try Linux but dont want to first try it in my main laptop.

My questions are which version of linux will run in my old laptop ? what about my files stored in other drives not in c as i want to install it as the main OS in it. and does linux need and hardware drivers or it will pick and install them automatically.

Specs are as follows:

Processor: 1.7 ghz Intel Pentium 4 (M)
RAM: 256 MB
Hard Drive 30 GB
Graphics Card: Trident 32mb Not a good graphics card

Thanks for answers.

Download some live CD versions and see which runs the fastest/problemless. Keep in mind it will work better after full install, but at least you'll see if drivers are ok/work out of the box.

Linux is very good at supporting old hardware, so you can probably get almost any distribution to run on it. However, many of the major distributions (such as Ubuntu or Fedora) come with large graphics-hardware-intensive user interfaces. Those won't run very well on your laptop, if at all.

If you are completely new to Linux, you might want to try running one of these bigger, more user-friendly versions of the OS on a more powerful machine first.

If you're willing to spend some time learning how Linux works, though, I'd go right ahead and throw a distribution on the laptop and see what happens. You might even want to try the "Arch" linux distribution, as that one practically forces you to learn the ins and outs of Linux as you install it.

Most distributions are quite willing to reformat your hard drive for you, or attempt to fit within the current partitions of your drive, and you can always choose the partition layout yourself. And Linux does an awesome job of figuring out hardware drivers these days. But yeah, as szopin mentioned, you can get a live CD version of most distributions, and test Linux out before you install it.

Good luck!

I'm running KNOPPIX (based on vanilla Debian) on my netbook. Even with Compiz effects on, runs super fast and all on a 4GB thumb drive. Persistent file and it's a mobile Linux system. Really love it. Has the LXDE desktop. Really great. Just need to get past the issue of not being able to update properly.

Smaller distros will work just fine with your specs, and don't forget older hardware tends to be better supported under FOSS so its very likely you won't need any proprietary binary blobs for your laptop. That said, BECAUSE its a laptop, if something is unsupported, you probably won't find a driver for it anymore from anyone at that age.

Now my older desktop computer is a P4 1.4 GHz upgraded to 392 MB of RAM and an ATI (now AMD) Rage 128, which I think is less spec'd than yours. I run Slackware on it (as I do all my computers other than my N900) and it runs just fine, though the graphics are a bit slow trying to feed my 26" monitor on full 1920X1280 (or whatever, I forget). The processor isn't powerful enough to decode MPEG-4, but MPEG-2 works ok. Flash tends to be problematic, but no surprise there. Don't forget to allocate swap, though unlike the N900 you should probably stick to the 1:1 or 1:2 real:disk ratio; if you need more, you should get more memory, but I've never had a thrashing problem unless something started really eating (or, more likely, leaking) memory.

One other point I want to add is that you should consider the BSDs as well, especially FreeBSD and its KDE-based derivative, PC-BSD. BSD was my first UNIX, and I've been wanting to go back to it for a while; it's probably also one reason I'm so comfortable with Slackware, which uses BSD-based init scripts among other things.

If you keep your expectations reasonable considering your hardware's age, I think you'll find running the smaller Linux distros or *BSDs will be very enjoyable and rewarding.

Mike

256MB of RAM is not much but ok if you chose a lightweight desktop environment or just a window manager.
For a list of distributions that might be suitable or info on Linux in general have a look at distrowatch:
http://distrowatch.com/

In case you already know Easy Debian, try Debian with the LXDE desktop! You'll find many similarities. But in general any distribution that comes with LXDE or Xfce should work fine.

And, for that matter, Linux works perfectly fine without running any graphics at all. It has a full suite of up-to-date command line software. You can do plenty even without any windows or mice.

What I miss is a TUI video player (mplayer with vo=aa is monochrome and vo=caca has incredible CPU demands) and a TUI image viewer (aview is also only monochrome).

Try Puppy Linux.